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DRAMATIC VERSES 




i 



DRAMATIC 
VERSES BY 
TRUMBULL 
S T I C K N E Y 



CHARLES E 
GOODSPEED 




BOSTON 
MDCCCCII 



COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY TRUMBULL STICK.NEY 
PUBLISHED OCTOBER, 1902 



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THE IJBFfAffY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two C0PIL8 REUfei-zen 

OCT. 24 %m'-i 

C!.;JiSS Ck XXc No. 

H-Z \ oz 

COIf*V t^ * 



>•• • « • 



€ : c r c < 



D. B. UPDIKE, THE MERRY MOUNT PRESS, BOSTON 



X 



MY DEAR BAY: THIS IS FOR BESSIE 
AND YOU, IF YOU WILL FIND ROOM 
FOR IT AMONG BETTER THINGS 



PARIS, 1902 



A TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Yialypsoy i ; Once^ 5 ; In the Fast, 6 ; Oneiro- 
po/oSy 8 ; Lucretiusy 14 ; Age in Youthy 16 ; I« 
Summery 19 ; I« Kmpe'z.'z.Oy 22 ; Mnemosyney 25 ; 
hodovico Mart e Hi y 26 ; DolorosGy 32 ; P/Zy, 33 ; 
S^«^, 34 5 Ra /stony 35 ; Dri/twoody 37 ; Requies- 
camy 39; EnV^, 43 ; Sonnety 71 ; Sonnety 72 ; 
Sonnety 73; Sonnet: On Rodin* s ^^Vlllusiony 
Sceur d'Icarey' 74 ; Sonnety 75 ; Sonnet: In a 
Churchyardy jj ; Sonnet, 78 ; Sonnety 79; S^«- 
«^/: 0« S^/«^ Shells found Inland, 80 ; Sonnety 
81 ; Sonnety 82 ; Sonnety 83 ; Sonnet: On the 
Concerty 84 ; S^ww^/, 85 ; Sonnety 86 ; SonnetySy ; 
Lake war dy 89 ; Vrometheus YyrphoroSy 95. 



KALYPSO 

1 hen sang Kalypso yet another song. 
A nd it was waxen late, beyond her isky 
B eyond the sea and world hung drearily 
A full moon. Quiet was, except the wind 
L ifting the water's murmur as a girl 
^ay lift the fold of some sad "Eastern silk, 
O ne cloudy a presage^ loitered. All the air 
W as marvellous and sorrowful^ as of 
J asmine sea-touched and roses pale with spray^ 
Of fading oleander ^ clematis 
G rown weary on the garden wall. Anon 
T he cold salt wind did rise and scatter all 
Odours: a little chilly then quietude. 
\%o here did mix the land\ breath and the sea^Sr 

A nd still she paused. Her solemn lipSy possessed 
Bj; that shy thought that comes before a songy 
W ere silent. And he raised his languid arm. 
C lasping it all she turned on him then 
The earnest heaven of her desirous eyes; 
Drew him about her feet y against her kneeSy 
{Closer; and rested in his hair one hand. 
' T he other aloncy moving so musical 
That her low notes were not more song than ity 
p escribed the region of the sinking moony 
' W hile soft and even a most unhappy strainy 
The modulation of an endless grief 
\^ lowed from her lips. And tiredly she sang: 

! ^ S he says : * follow my steps and take my hand 
r where the shoreward sea falls colourless 



A nd light is growing lesSy grows ever less 
Y et quencheth never; where the seas expand 
A nd shrink, where nothing alter eth, I stand 
Upon that melancholy marge of sand, 

"*T^^ Earth was made; yet then was I alone, 
^ a Iking this skyey meadow's nodding gold, 
I ^ve seen her freshest garden turnM old 
And men grow mortal in her beds of stone, 
B w/ I am still alone, and near the sun 
Sometimes I think my heart is waxen cold 
For having been so very long a lone, ^^^ 

H er voice was richer with the widening song, 
L ight came and went, colour reposed and fed 
About her face. There in the swarty night 
She shone like opal, flickering weird flame 
A nd crossed with splendour. On his neck her hand 
Quivered; he felt her blood throb; languidly 
Thro* closing eyelids of the soul he saw 
The world dissolve in rosiness. She sang: 

^^^Comef so long have I looked on thee, so long 
That my gold lids are heavy with desire; 
Mjy arms for waiting here in heaven tire; 
M j; throat is tuneless with unceased song, 
'W here nothing is and day and night prolong 
E ach other in the sober twilight fire. 
Give me thy soul for having looked so long, 

" * I ^^ below. Follow thou in my trace 
A nd taste my solitude. There all the air 
Becomes a lover feeling love so rare, 
2 



T he chilly wave walks nearer yet to share 
T he rhythm and ecstasy of our embrace^ 
And evening jealous of our flushed face 
Goes out in sad retire and pale despair. 

"*A W while upon that solitary sand 
The ripples burn away their fringe of light 
A nd after me drawn down the heavenly night 
Vnnumbered stars fall throbbing to the landy 
L et all the glamour of my courses waned 
Vossess thy soul in lingering delight^ — 
het me in darkness feel thy failing handy^ 
\ 

O ver his head she stooped. Her odorous hair 
Fell thickly o\r his face, ^he kissed him 
\With all the sleepy honeys of her soul. 
Her arms did slip along his necky his breast; 
3 he kissed him lazily upon the lids 
A nd languorously on the broWy she kissed him 
Trembling and fiery on the opened mouth. 
\knd slowly — 

j W ind rose. Rustles crept to 'j ear, 

^hro* meshes of her hair he saw gray-blown 
\Vhe thick tumultuous cloud blotted and streaked 
\Nith witchery of dead moon. The midnight whirred, 
iparsely the windy stars and feebly hung. 
|V little withered leaf blew by; it scratched 
\\im with its frittered edge. For it was autumn. 
\ utumn it was. Then did he know. No more 
Xhat year would he return^ that year no more; 
; i ather^ locked by the vastly circular 
^^ alls 0* the sea^ the quashing roof of heaven^ 

3 



S till suffocated in the changeless air^ 

S //'// vexed by incessant memory and recall^ 

W ould stand in pain desirous of that dear 

F ireside and her more dear and beautiful — 

O curse to exile! Horrid ire shook him. 

Yle started from her embrace^ muttered^ struggled^ — 

Then sudden came into dominion 

Of his great self Yie stood and said to her^ 

*'*'T hou art more masterful than death. The life 

That spurred me thro* the waters of the world 

VJ as spent indeed^ — and claimed again^ O love^ 

Upon thy souPs warm shore." And amorously^ she though 

H e neared her^ lifted her. They drew toward 

Her dwelling. To herself she seemed queen 

Over his love^ and on the forward heaven 

Of her retreating hope she lit the stars 

Of happy hours^ of happy days^ — the crown 

Of long desire; and drank of his embrace 

A dear oblivion of sad doubt: the while 

H e plotted to beguile this woman here^ 

G aoler of Fate, to drug her love asleep^ 

T hat ere his death tho* waxen old he V see 

W ere^t but the smoke of tree-clad Ithaca. 



ONCE 

1 hat day her eyes were deep as night. 
She had the motion of the rose^ 
T he bird that veers across the lighty 
T he waterfall that leaps and throws 
I ts irised spindrift to the sun. 
S he seemed a wind of music passing on. 

Alone I saw her that one day 

S tand in the window of my life. 

Her sudden hand melted away 

U nder my lipSy and without strife 

I held her in my arms awhile 

And drew into my lips her living smile^ — 

N<7Zf many a day ago and year I 

S ince when I dream and lie awake 

In summer nights to feel her near^ 

And from the heavy darkness break 

G litter Sy till all my spirit swims 

A nd her hand hovers on my shaking limbs. 

If once again before I die 

I drank the laughter of her mouth 

A nd quenched my fever utter ly^ 

I say^ and should it cost my youth^ 

'Twere well I for I no more should wait 

Hammering midnight on the doors of fate. 



IN THE PAST 

1 here lies a somnolent lake 
U nder a noiseless sky^ 
W here never the mornings break 
Nor the evenings die. 

Mad flakes of colour 

W hirl on its even face 

Iridescent and streaked with pa Hour ^ 

Knd^ warding the silent place^ 

T he rocks rise sheer and gray 
Yrom the sedgeless brink to the sky 
"Dull-lit with the light of pale half day 
Thro^ a void space and dry. 

And the hours lag dead in the air 
With a sense of coming eternity 
To the heart of the lonely boatman there. 
That boatman am I, 

I, in my lonely boat^ 

A waif on the somnolent lake^ 

VJ atching the colours creep and float 

■W ith the sinuous track of a snake. 

Now I lean o'er the side 
And lazy shades in the water see^ 
happed in the sweep of a sluggish tide 
C rawled in from the living sea ,• 

A nd next I fix mine eyeSy 

So long that the heart declines^ 

6 



On the change/ess face of the open skies 
W here no star shines; 

A nd now to the rocks I turn^ 
To the rocks^ around 
That lie like walls of a circling urn 
W herein lie bound 

The waters that feel my powerless strength 

And meet my homeless oar 

L ahouring over their ashen length 

N ever to find a shore, 

B ut the gleam still skims 
At times on the somnolent lake^ 
And a light there is that swims 
W ith the whirl of a snake; 

A nd tho" dead be the hours /' the airy 
A nd day less the sky, 

T he heart is alive of the boatman there: 
That boatman am I. 



ONEIROPOLOS 

i^omey Sakhi, Here within this edge of shade 
W e ^11 stand against the house-wall shadow-cooled, 
T here 'i no one left at noon in the Agora 
To quib their fortune of my dozen birds. 
The town — the worldy these poor Athenians think- 
Goes home and half asleep. Their prattling stops. 
A nd burned by sunlight thro' the stifling hours, 
T emple and house, statue and wall and road 
Glow as hot copper. 

But here shadow dwells; 
A nd here by the sun-stricken afternoon 
I stand leaning my head, and close my eyes. 
A red light swims my brain awhile, then goes; 
A nd unto memory I surrender me 
Of all my master Brihadashua said. 
My blessed master pure and charitable 
W ho dwelt in Kashi by the holy stream, 
Happy indeed was I, happy to count 
A wizard in my kindred such as he, 
"W hose lips were wholly dedicate to truth, 
W hose hand dispensed serene and wonderful 
Veace to the spirit as a tree his shade. 
T him, as one who rushes head aflame, 
K indled and dry with fever, toward shore, 
I went; and most divinely pitiful 
He taught me wisdom. To his voice I turned 
As turns a lotus to the rosy dawn, 
F illing with light, gathering treasure thence 
To keep within its heart all the day long. 
Sometime he spake, and all were blest; sometime 

8 



S ilent we sat within the pale and help 

Of all his thought. Continually did fall 

The pleasant dew of patience from his eye^ 

Which looking ever beyond world and star 

W as large as upper heaven. They were the days 

W hen I had laid the world to rest within me 

And^ tho* with childish lips^ did after him 

S>ay as in dream the holy syllables. 

He diedy — rather y I heard him never more, 

H is final earthly errand^ whilst his mind^ 

Quitting our vain and pitiable scene, 

D issolvedy he gave me in trust, I quit the shore 

Of holy Ganga^s healing water-wave, 

hong travelled, breathed of many airs, reviewed 

Forests of sandal, where the Spring wind blew. 

And tender-petalled lily-beds, whereo\r 

The gray crane spanned his gracious, level flight. 

W estward I followed, following every day 

In quest of that he bade me. At the last 

C beheld Sindhus, and my errand '.f done, 

I 

\H.ear, Sakhi, yet awhile my destiny. 

The burning season shone, I stayed — too late. 

The people'' s rumour told of a great host, 

^Yavanas named, from the utter unknown lands, 

1 3 ener ailed by a god and more innumerable 

\Vhan drops in rainy season; giants all, 

[That tramped about the edges of the world 

And rose like a live night of crying birds 

Across and thro' high heaven, then fell to earth — ■ 

\^ hat needs the many words f The Greeks were on, 

j 3 ne midday hour the world did leap apart, 

I 9 



A nd thence a thirsty multitude in riot^ 
With womeriy gold ^ flocks^ armour^ came Is y coins; 
Maddened with hunger for another world; 
Each vagabond upon his empty heart 
A n empire's jewel scattering the light. 
They sacked the land^ then weary sat them downy 
A nd with a million mouths and voices cried 
They V walk the wide and feeble earth no more, 
S^ spake the children and the world obeyed. 
Oceanwardy between patient ^indhus shores^ 
T he locusts movedy leaving a piteous landy 
With goods and gold and men, whereof was I. 

ver a milky ocean torn with fiame 

And faced with greenish current^ Uong a shore 
C rusted with yellow sandy beneath a sky 
Of endless sun, they lived and sailed and died, 
T hen for a little year the millions tramped 
Thro* deserts flat as sea ^nd gray as cloudy 
T ill they saw finally a shore. And ships 
B ore them ^twixt isle and islcy after the 5w«, 

1 nto the port yonder y Feiraios calledy 

To rest, 'T was homey they said; and all men wept. 

I found their painted fanes and naked gods 
A nd all these children babbling in the sun. 
First did I hunger y knowing no trick or tradey 
K nowing nothing that sold brings money in, 
I talked noty nor could understand at all 
This Grecian race of laughter y pleasurey song, 
Vityy nor giving almsy nor anything 
That makes the spirit purey is here. They livCy 
And suffer the for get fulness of life, 

10 



T his is my tale : One night I walked abroad 

Ere dawn a dreary hour^ the market-place 

M ore dark than any jungle. Cold it was, 

I walked^ when five culd fingers touched my army — 

B eside^ a Phrygian slave. Often I V seen 

Him and his fortune~table''s dozen birds, — 

^* O neiropolos" called, ^^ seller of dreams," 

H e looked me in the eyes and took my arm 

And led me here; awhile rehearsed his tricks: 

Teased with his forefinger a bird^s soft throat, — 

Which leapt on V, pecked and picked one single card, 

S^ did the Phrygian seven times, and went, 

ver Kkropolis was golden dawn, 

Their naked gods all bloomed with light. The dark 

1 n violet veils dissolved down the steep heaven. 
And I stood here, selling to Athens dreams. 



A dying town filled of a feeble race, 
^ mall gossips of their all-expressing tongue. 
Dancers and frolickers, philosophers 
D runken and sense-tied to the trembling world, 
^^ither from fifty climes men come and come, 
\W omen and children come to see — ^t is strange! — 
V his city of the old and marble things, 
\Twas miracle, say they, what sights were seen 
Here, Sakhi, one great hundred years agone — 
^ or they count Time upon their nervous hand. 
\'3 alleys and chariots, beauty, viSfory, gold, 
I \ nd gods they had, whose fair procession walked 
N ith maidens, cattle, priests and horse ; whereof 
\'Jp in the shadows of the fane, yonder. 



1 5 marble piSiure by a studied hand. 
So at their pretty game the children played 
Building and singing on, — But all is gone, 
*Tis vision^ tale of poets ^ memory^ nothing; 
N ow there is void shadow^ blown by windy 
And the unstoried year is rolled away, 

H ere in the dying town I sell them dr earns ^ 

Here where the Phrygian stood. At evening 

I knock at yonder gate in the High Wall, 

A nd enter. Courteously a gentle man 

heads me within^ to shade. Upon his lips 

Their chattering Greek is low and lovelier. 

I sit me down, My supper bowl of rice 

He gives, saying, ^^ My friend, rejoice in peace. ''^ 

"Down thro* his olive orchard, shadowy 

And still and secret as the things of \nd, 

T he lily-like soft evening gathers dark. - 

Blest is his pious deed; for many hear 

The spoken solace of his quietude. 

To him what little coin I gather here. 

Not in exchange or manner of the West, 

I bring. For Epicurus aids the poor, 

Veace! My words are many, Now peace to thee! 
For yonder comes as ever at this time 
Vhryne, the rose and glory of their world. 
Her veil is wove of sunrise, and her face 
The white moon set between two clouds of black, 
H er eye '5 a firefly and her voice a viol. 
She walks as when a bird follows the sea, 
12 



Here daily falls her piece of gold ^ — she'^s rich 
And timid as the shining meteor^ 
And hovers mothlike round her destiny; 
For all her wings and beauty are for sale. 



13 



LUCRETIUS 

SPERATA VOLUPTAS SUAVIS AMICITIAE 

olow Spring that, slipping thro' the silver lighty 
hike some young wanderer now returnest home 
After strange years, 

Yiow like to me! to mine thy timorous plight ! 
W ho quietly near my friendship's altar come 
W here yet no God appears, 

^y many a deed I sought to win his love. 

Made him a wreath of all my songs and hours, — 

Most vain, most fair ! 

'^ow falls about the shroud my years have wove; 

My evening drops her large, slow purple flowers 

T hro' gardens of gold air. 

To him this verse, to him this crown of leaves. 

My supreme piety shall I commend: 

This is my last, 

W reathed of what Youth endows and Age bereaves, 

Bound by the fingers of a lover and friend^ 

Green with the vital past. 

We sunder, he my Truth, I the desire. 
I spread my wooing fingers, I would earn 
Hz5 least address: 

But parcels of the heaven-dispersM fire, 
Sky-severed exiles, we divinely learn 
To sufil'er loneliness. 

My life was little in joy, little in pain-. 
Mine were the wise denials, with none I coped 

14 



To win the sky; 

A nd when I surely saw my love was vain — 
The joy of his sweet friendship I had hoped — 
I stilled. Now let me die, — 

N ow that the endless wind is growing warm, 
Richer the star, and flowers on many a slope 
Undo their sheath; 
O let us yield to lifers divinest charm 
That lured us thro* the blasted field of hope. 
Let us return to death. 



15 



AGE IN YOUTH 

From far she^s come^ and very old^ 
A nd very soiled with wandering. 
The dust of seasons she has brought 
Unbidden to this field of spring, 

She^s halted at the log-barred gate. 
T he May-day waitSy a tangled spill 
Of light that weaves and moves along 
T he daisied margin of the hilly 

Where Mature bares her bridal heart j 
A nd on her snowy soul the sun 
L anguors desirously and dully 
An amorous pale vermilion. 

She^s haltedy propped her rigid armSy 
W ith dead big eyes she drinks the west; 
T he brown rags hang like clotted dust 
About hery save her withered breast. 

A very soilure of a dream 
Runs in the furrows of her broWy 
A nd with a craxy voice she croons 
An ugly catch of long ago, 

I ts broken rhythm is hard and hoarsey 
I ts sunken soul of music toils 
I n precious ashesy dust of youth 
And lovely faces sorrow soils, 

B ut look ! Along the molten sky 

T here runs strange havoc of the sun. 

i6 



^^^ hat a strange sight this isy" she says^ 
'Til cross the field, V II follow onr 

l^he bars are falling from the gate. 
The meshes of the meadow yield; 
And trudging sunsetward she draws 
A journey thro' the daisy field. 

The daisies shudder at her hem. 
Her dry face laughs with flowery light; 
An aureole lifts her soiled gray hair: 
^^Vll on" she says, ^^to see this sight.'' 

In the rude math her torn shoe mows 
Juices of trod grass and crushed stalk 
M ix with a soiled and earthy dew, 
W ith smear of petals gray as chalk. 

The Spring grows sour along her track; 
The winy airs of amethyst 
Turn acid. ^^]ust beyond the ledge" 
She says, ^^ I'll see the sun at rest." 

A nd to the tremor of her croon, 
H er old, old catch of long ago, 
T he newest daisies of the grass 
She shreds and passes on below. . . . 

T he sun is gone where nothing is 
A nd the black-bladed shadows war. 
She came and passed, she passed along 
That wet, black curve of scimitar. 

17 



In vain the flower-lifting morn 

W ith golden fingers to uprear 

The weak Spring here shall pause awhile. 

T his is a scar upon the year. 



i8 



IN SUMMER 

Lt^s growing evening in my soul^ 

1 1 darkens in. 

A / the gray window now and then 

I hear them toll 

T he hour-and-day-long chimes of S/. Etienne. 

I ndeed I V not have lived elsewhere 

Nor otherwise, 

N or as the dreary saying is 

Been happier. 

To wear the love of life within my eyes. 

My hearths desolate meadow waySy 

A II wet and green, 

Opened for her to wander in 

A little space, 

I V have it even so as it has been, 

Vve lived the days that fly away^ 

I have a tale 

To tell when age has made me pale 

A nd hair of gray 

Excuse the fancy shaking out her sail, 

N^ one shall know what I intend. 

Even as I feel 

T he aching voices make appeal 

A nd swell and blend, 

It seems to me I might stoop down to kneel 



I n memory of that day in June 

19 



When, all the land 



Lying out in lazy summer fanned 

Now and anon 

B j; dying breezes from the Channel strand^ 

With nothing in our lives behind^ 

N othing before^ 

I n sunlight rich as melting ore 

A nd wide as wind 

We clomb the donjon tower of old Gisors 

Thro* the portcullis botched in wood 

A nd upy in fear^ 

A laddered darkness of a stair y 

XJp to the good 

Sun-stricken prosper and the dazzling air, — 

E ven now I shade my breaking eyes. —■- 

A nd by her side 

Surely she saw my heart divide 

L ike paradise 

For her to walk abroad in at noon-tide. 

I / swims about my memory. 

I feel around 

T he country steeped in summer swound; 

I feel the sigh 

That all these years within her breast was bouna 

H er fingers in my hand are laid. 

I seem to gaze 

Into the colours of her face^ 

And there is made 

A quiver in my knees like meadow-grass^ . 



T hat time I lived the life I have : 

A certain flower 

B looms in a hundred years one hour^ 

A nd what it gave 

I s richer^ no, nor more, but all its power. 

The chimes have ended for to-day. 

After midnight 

Solitude blows her candle out; 

D reams go away, 

And memory falls from the mast of thought. 



IN AMPEZZO 

KJn/y once more and not again — the larches 
S hake to the wind their echo^ " ^ot again^^ — 
W^ see^ below the sky that over-arches 
H eavy and hlue^ the plain 

B etween Tofana lying and Crista llo 
I n meadowy earths above the ringing stream : 
W hence interchangeably desire may follow^ 
Hesitant as in dream^ 

A / sunsety southy by lilac promontories 
Under green skies to Italy y or forth 
By calms of morning beyond Lavinores 
Tyrolward and to north : 

As noWy this last of latter daySy when over 
T he brownish field by peasants are undone 
Siome widths of grasSy some plots of mountain clover 
U nder the autumn suny 

With honey-warm perfume that risen lingers 
In mazes of low heaty or takes the airy 
Vassing delicious as a woman^s fingers 
Massing amid the hair-, 

When scythes are swishing and the mower* s muscle 
Spans a repeated crescent to and frOy 
Or in dry stalks of corn the sickles rustle^ 
Tanglcy detach and gOy 

Far thro* the wide blue day and greening meadow 
Whose blots of amber beaded are with sheave Sy 

22 



^ hereover pallidly a doud-shadozv 
D eadens the earth and leaves : 

Whilst high around and near^ their heads of iron 
Siunken in sky whose azure overlights 
Ravine and edgeSy stand the gray and mar on 
"Desolate Dolomites^ — 

And older than decay from the small summit 
U nfolds a stream of pebbly wreckage down 
Under the suns of midday ^ like some comet 
S truck into gravel stone. 

Faintly across this gold and amethystine 
September y images of summer fade ; 
knd gentle dreams now freshen on the pristine 
Violsy awhile unplayed^ 

Of many a place where lovingly we wander^ 
More dearly held that quickly we forsake^ — 
A pine by sullen coasts^ an oleander 
Reddening on the lake, 

Knd there^ each year with more familiar motion^ 
Yrom many a bird and windy forestries ^ 
Or along shaking fringes of the ocean 
W apours of music rise. 

From many easts the morning gives her splendour; 
The shadows fill with colours we forget; 
Remembered tints at evening grow tender.. 
Tarnished with violet. 

Let us away! soon sheets of winter metal 
On this discoloured mountain-land will close ^ 

23 



While elsewhere Spring-time weaves a crimson peta 
Guilds and perfumes a rose. 

Away! for here the mountain sinks in gravel. 
Let us forget the unhappy site with change^ 
And go^ if only happiness be travel 
After the new and strange : — 

U nless '/ were better to be very single^ 

To follow some diviner monotone^ 

A nd in all beauties^ where ourselves commingle^ 

Love but a love, but one^ 

Across this shadowy minute of our living , 
W hat time our hearts so magically sing, 
To meditate our fever, si?nply giving 
All in a little thing? 

J ust as here, past yon dumb and melancholy 
Sameness of ruin, while the mountains ail, 
S ummer and sunset-coloured autumn slowly 
'Dissipate down the vale; 

A nd all these lines along the sky that measure^ 
S or apis and the rocks ofMezzodt 
Crumble by foamy miles into the azure 
Mediterranean sea: 

Whereas to-day at sunrise, under brambles^ 
A league above the moss and dying pines 
I picked this little — in my hand that trembles — 
P arcel of columbines. 



H 



MNEMOSYNE 
1/V autumn in the country I remember, 

Itlow warm a wind blew here about the ways! 
And shadows on the hillside lay to dumber 
D uring the long sun-sweetened summer-days, 

It'^s cold abroad the country I remember, 

T he swallows veering skimmed the golden grain 
At midday with a wing aslant and limber; 
And yellow cattle browsed upon the plain, 

I/V empty down the country I remember, 

I had a sister lovely in my sight : 

Her hair was dark, her eyes were very sombre; 
We sang together in the woods at night, 

I/'i lonely in the country I remember. 

The babble of our children fills my ears^ 
And on our hearth I stare the perished ember 
Tojlames that show all starry thro* my tears. 

It^s dark about the country I remember, 

T here are the mountains where I lived. The path 
Is slushed with cattle-tracks and fallen timber^ 
The stumps are twisted by the tempests' wrath, 

B ut that I knew these places are my own, 

I V ask how came such wretchedness to cumber 

The earth, and I to people it alone, 

I I rains across the country I remember, 

25 



LODOVICO MARTELLI 

O Gaddiy ope the casement^ open wide 

A nd prop my pillow. But the window square 

Of light y of sky ! tho* skies of Sicily 

Are not Firenze^s. Ah, Firenze mine! 

"Darkly I feel how ^s wasting all my life 

A nd dulls my brain ; Death 'j guessing at my name. 

But utter strange it is to die. The word 

" hife " to my ear rings mournful-rich and stings 

The sleepy nerve of longing. This is pain — 

To stifle far from home, the heart suppressed 

By a handful of such years as other men 

Make nought of, Mercy of God, what mother e'er 

Fashioned a heart so brittle, a head and brain 

^ hereof the tissues crack with fever? ^hy 

Live? to have tasted life? — and die oft! aye, 

^Twas little more. 

The silly, silly tears. 
But Qaddi, look, my head, my arm! Indeed 
Think you that I revive? Meseemeth now 
T'he Spring should soften Fiesole to flower 
And Colli meadows show to every wind 
"^ew petals of anemony. How often 
By the divine immemorable days. 
By sober afterlight when marvel is 
A nd all Firenze turns a smouldering gold — 
How oft upon the hillside have we heard 
T he melancholy ritornello! Ah 
What Springs were they! Tell me if ever, sincCy 
T he night was moonful, or a woman's eye 
Tearfully asked a softer question? 

26 



H ow waved the paling heaven's embroidery^ 
^ hat wonder woke the odour ed bloom of earthy 
W hat music had the tongue of Tuscany^ 
What rhymes! How large a burial is the Vast! 

A nd thence away to Rome, to sovran Rome. 
What were the sickly earth without its Rome^ 
I ts gorgeous city where the revels are^ 
D ice and cards and the old ecstatic wine 
T hat glints dark ruby, and superbly eyed 
T he rich and unimpassioned courtesans^ 
And LeOy Vope — 

Yes, listen. One great once 
I saw the heavenly Householder, but far 
From^s home. Come nearer, Gaddi, hist! Ye know 
The Morosina who has Italians hair, 
W hose eye is somewhat strangely more than blue. 
Who laughs like beech-leaves ringing in the light; 
Her kisses indolent as a warm rain. . . . 
I dream. The Vope said I ? 'T was winter night. 
T he wind fell edged and pointed down the lane 
B eneath the casement many have looked to, where 
Stood I, whistling a feverish tune. And straight 
'Twas oped. I entered. All about mine ear 
I heard "M_y hodovico,^^ — such a sound 
B ecame the long and melancholy name ! 
I drew my mask, and darkly there I saw — 
Nothing, but felt and breathed veriest Heaven. 
A bout our kiss did move her tender hair. 
Her breast to mine, her living arms, her brow — 
The memory aches me that it is so dead. 
S he led me with a touch like melody 

*7 



That being fore' er more forward in the air 

S //// guides. The cold and arched corridor 

We traversed^ I a dreamer sunsetwards 

A nd she the moving beauty of the day. 

We climbed the stair ^ a sick moon-gazer I 

B eneath her white and spirit-winged moon : 

T ill in her chamber with our eyes we lit 

T he owlish gloom about her tapestry. 

Upon his horse the hunter moved asleep 

And every falcon turned owl. Alone 

The cresset flickered on the fragrant oily 

S hedding an old small light. And she and I 

W^ sung the night with kisses low a dream. 

She said the wonder things in olden words; 

She made a music languorous as Time 

And rich as Summer^ whilst her endless hair 

S eemed Aphrodite* s o^er the shallow wave 

T hin-spread at midday. Odour never rose 

Sweet as her breasts\ and musically she 

D id often turn her golden head away 

T hat gazing I might weave and weave my soul 

Into a necklace stringed of sleepy pearl 

Without a clasp. — 

B ut then befell the thing, 
M ethought I heard^ I heard indeed a door 
Noising — and near. I threw ''r aside. "B^ Christy 
A snare! now bless me — where'' s my sword? my maskf*^ 
«I love thy soui;' she sang. "li V BemboF'' «N^." 
^^The whorish trade/** Her shaking hand she put 
I n mine. The step grew living near, I drew. 
Then most superbly on the threshold poised 
An all-black cavalier ^ save in the mask 
28 



Two fires. "By YenuSy^ quoth^ "^ lady's h&e 
That loves too widely to love well. Good sir. 
Suppose — " "A sword's enough for courtesy,** 
H e drew a wonder of Toledo blade 
I That rang like music. Masterly we fenced 
j A nd plied our gallant art Italian^ 
Till on a sudden her most delirious form 
Kushed with a cry betwixt us. But she fell 
H alf-sensed. We moved. Then with an elfish pass 
I pierced his hand. The weapon fell to ground^ — 
And he was flyings — but next about his waist 
Her tender arms imploring pardon clung. 
H^ struggled^ stumbled^ fell; the mask removed; 
By ]esu God in Heaven, verily I 
Then saw great Leo's face, the Vope's ofV^ome, 
\ shuddered as a reed, my brain rocked, all 
W ithered together crumbling in my soul: 
\ fled, yet with a backward look to see 
The mistress of the gods make of her hair^ 
H.er golden hair a Pontiff's chasuble, — 

Oost thou believe Vm dying of darkish things^ 
Of poison — P 

Ah, my hearths a crust of ash, 
\ nd glowing chains are piled about my head. 
\aving? Not I. Give me no drugs. The world 
charioted have left in dust behind. 
^or I was ?oet, — They said, they said "A soft 
*oet, who stole Vetr area's melodies 
\nd spoiled his robbery.'' Soft in verse I was, 
k master had I like, forsooth, the rest, , . . 



29 



But nothing timeless said! Full well I know V, 
The shaft is on my hearts boWy poised^ unloosed! 
V^hile Raphael delves a ceiling into skies 
"Peopling his coloured thought y and hgnolo 
Makes the fresh-quarried adamant to sweat 
Ferocious agony y or in peace reclined 
T look long looks abroad the shifting world. 
If why, I V sing for them^ I hodovico 
Martelli, I would send my songs full-sailed 

ver the waves and waters of the years, 
L et them be painter ^ sculptor : poet^ I, 

For your unquiet thoughts^ the horrid strong^ 

1 have them, — writ? not yet! but here^s my heart, 
F eel it! so tramped the innumerable host 

W hen Rome was burned. And very vast a tale 

W ere half its history. Often have I stood 

On hills high up, by sorry coasts, alone 

Vassing my vision angrily, I thought 

T have plucked the yellow comets by their hair. 

To have braided meteors, and from ^hind the moon 

Robbed her society of chanting tides, 

I V stand, my back to the seaward cliffs, at bay 

And fight the wave. Completed earth 'i a leaf 

T urning in space along with the other dust 

That blinds the eye of God, 

Away, away! 
Canst see the waters from the window? Help, 
Help, sir, I ^ve clomb Vesuvius of old, 
Tasting its breath — ^twas half so steep. Behold, 
Yon rolls in wide and worldly rhythm the sea, 
G reatest and eldest poet. Yonder chants 
The epic wave in rich monotony, 
30 



M ine eye seems big as heaven. And far abroad 
¥rom Even's distaff floats the purple wool, 
W et-eyed she sits; the light for love of her 
'becomes a moon but to behold her die — 
The moon — Yirenze! Is Firenze near? 
Methinks *twere half a journey, 

A /?, but were we there ! 
How fresh her lip is graven on my heart. 
I see her, palely. But — tell me^ who knows — 
\s she not waxen^ like me^ somewhat old? 
Y or something long has happened. AlPs ago. 
I was ages ago, and in the world 
W e were together young, S^j;, am I dead 
That Vm so far? Yerhaps shall I return. 
Bid Laura wait for April; I return, 
I that so endless loved her, love her. Say: 
^^ Within the colour-cupped anemonies 
L ieth his heart, and all the leaves are he. 
The gentle ecstasy of earth, the wind 
T hat lifts so happily thy hair is he, 
A nd he the Spring that holds thee all about,"** 
3 Gaddi, I shall not return. My mood 
[s his who sits upon a farther shore, 
W aiting and sick, 

It^s night and strangely cold, 
Vo bed! *tis bitter cold. My very breast 
2tiivers, Hold me, good Gaddi, — or I shake 
Vo death. My body^s dry. Christ, what a world! 
N ater, good soul, water ! Hold thou the cup. 



31 



DOLOROSA 

1 hou hadst thy wilL 
How weary sounds the rain! 
T he firelight wanders in the window-pane. 
Thou art still 

Let me a space^ 

Now that the daylight dieSy 

L ie back against thee and with upward eyes 

hove thy face. 

Forgive my /ear, 

But — darling — hold me fast ! 

A little while the heartache will be past, 

VatiencCy dear. 

Give me thy hands 

A nd bending closely o'er 

hay thy two lips to mine for evermore. 

Death commands. 



32 



PITY 

A« old light smoulders in her eye. 

T here ! she looks up. They grow and glow 

hike mad laughs of a rhapsody 

T hat flickers out in woe, 

A n old charm slips into her sighsy 
A n old grace sings about her hand, 
S he bends : it *s musically wise, 
I cannot understand. 

Tder voice is strident; but a spell 
Of fluted whisper stlkens in — 
The lost heart in a moss-grown belly 
Y aded — but sweet — but thin, 

She bows like waves — waves near the shore. 
Her hair is in a vulgar knot — 
hovelyy dark hair, whose curves deplore 
Something she*s well forgot, 

S he must have known the sun^ the moon^ 
On heaverCs warm throat star-jewels strung- 
\t''s late. The gas-lights flicker on, 
Y oungy only in yearsy but young! 

ne might remind hery say the street 

1 s dark and vile now day is done, 
hut would she carey she fear to meet — 
B ut there she goes— is gone. 



33 



SONG 

A bud has burst on the upper bough 

(T he linnet sang in my heart to-day) ; 

I know where the pale green grasses show 

Bj a tiny runnel^ off the way^ 

A nd the earth is wet. 

(A cuckoo said in my brain: ^^Not yet.^') 

I nabbed the fly in a briar rose 

[T he linnet to-day in my heart did sing); 

hast nighty my head tucked under my wingy 

I dreamed of a green moon-moth that glows 

T hro* ferns of]une. 

(A cuckoo said in my brain : " So soon f ") 

G ood-bye^ for the pretty leaves are down 
(T he linnet sang in my heart to-day) ; 
T he last gold bit of upland '5 mown^ 
And most of summer has blown away 
T hro^ the garden gate, 
(A cuckoo said in my brain : " Too lateT) 



34 



RALSTON 

1 thee^ that all this wretchedness be ended 
And I become in my disaster free^ 
I bring my broken life to be amended, 
T ake me^ O sea^ 

sea of California^ thou Vacific^ 

For which the multitude of mortals bound 
Go trembling headlong down and zvith terrific 
Outcry are drowned. 

Take me out of the earth that I remain not 

T tell to gossips in a hovel tales 

Of what I was. I who have squandered cannot 

V lay with the scales. 

1 who with power and riches stood surrounded 
A nd gave as princes^ and without a throne 

W as King the greater that for name I sounded 
Only my own: 

I must have gone away^ not die nor wither 

B ut vanish like a rolling sound of brass^ 

A comet burst which — without whence or whither 

Or wherefore — was. 

¥or men born out of yesterday are yestern^ 

Y or men to-day are of to-day. And we^ 
W^ need only ourselves we men of Western 
D emocracy, 

Bj> my own sinews and own brain^ unweakened 
^y lineage and generations^ I 

D id what I did^ and with the wide world reckoned 
T live and die. 

35 



I gave and had no memory of measure. 
Others can tell who rollicked at my feast ; 
A nd in my palace there was greater pleasure 
Than in the East, 

I did enjoy and drank the beaker frothing; 
I have kindled the splendours every one, 
Tho* my magnificence to-day be nothings 
I sayy I won^ — 

I won. And fortune cast me her dismissal! 

Of traps and treasures whereof 1 could say 

'T is mine ! there ^s not so much as rubbish. This all 

W as yesterday, 

S qua lid and sad where I before did conquer ^ 
D oubtless again I could have vi^ory^ 
Again lie in the golden gates at anchor — 
deceive me^ sea! 

There sinks the sun in dusts of sulphur glowing 
Gibbous and red; and flaking toward the shore 
hike hosts of scarlet willow-leaves bestrewing 
The sapphire floor, 

A nd from the country evening scarce arisen 
Out of the flowering oranges the breeze^ — 
The breeze will carry me to the horizon^ 
To silences 

Of sky and wave^ the dark^ the swirling eddy^ 
T he sinking down out of the vital air, 
A nd down out of myself down from the giddy 
Glories that were, 

36 



DRIFTWOOD 

Heaven is lovelier than the starSy 
The sea is fairer than the shore; 
Vve seen beyond the sunset bars 
A colour more, 

A thought is floating round my mindy 
A nd there are words that will not come, 
D you believe^ as I, the wind 
Somewhere goes home? 



I n grassy paths my spirit walks, 
The earth I travel speaks me fair 
And still thro* many voices talks 
Of that deep oneness which we are, 

I love to see the rolling sod 
M ixing and changing ever grow 
To other formSy — and this is God 
A nd all of God and all we know. 

I love to feel the dead dust whirled 
About my face y to touch the dust ; 
And this large muteness of the world 
Gives me vitality of trust, 

H ere on the earth I lie a space^ 
The quiet earth that knows no strife. 
I mix with her and take my place 
I n the dark matter that is life, 

37 



I saw the moon and heard her singy 
I saw her sing and heard the moon. 
F or light and song went wing and wing. 

So many a ship and many a star 
A broad the sky and sea are two, 
W^ know it not for being far. 

So two fair fowers make a whole 
I n corner meadows of the spring. 
I / takes two hearts to make a soul; 

A nd down the cloudy days they fare 
M arried in Beauty, as of old 
T he lovers thro* the infernal air. 

IV 

B etween the sun and moon 
A voice now vague now clear — 
Y>o you hear? — 
Says ^''Wander on."** 

A nd on the hearthstone black 
T he embers poignantly — 
'Do you see? — 
SpeW Come back:' 



38 



R E QJJ I E S C A M 

\jome to the window ! You ^re the painter used 

To shadow-in pools of light far out to sea^ 

O r fix it where the solitary wave 

Rears with a shimmering scoop before the shore^ — 

A glorious wave I But now look out awhile 

And love my vieWy from our suburban height 

T he squalid champaign zigzagged by the Seine, 

Vm old, most of my labour done. Mj; chisel 

One of these days among the pellets of dry clay 

W /// lie and rust. I have immensely worked^ 

And hitherto seen nothing but the Form 

S taring upon my eyeballs. Years and yearSy 

W hether alone along the shining streets 

O' the city or in companionship, I ^ve looked 

S long and seen away so fixedly 

That space scrolled up, I seeing none the less: 

Except some shape, some woman lightning-blenched, 

Vinned to the ground, lay dreadful in my road. 

O Labour, everlasting vanity, 

That fills her cracking pitcher and falls down 

Face to the earth, the water in her hair I 

Into a bole of clay all my life long 
Vve stared my visions in, and, thumbing, seen 
lM.aterialize obscurely to a line 
The long desire of^ature turning home. 
^0 strains itself out of the sea a shape 
With loads of weedy tide up to the land, 
5 training to touch and taste, to lose and die, 

39 



S> training for e'er miserably unsatisfied, 
between the toad and lyre-bird^ Uwixt the snail 
And greyhound all is struggle : the which is vain. 
For by our bases we We firm sunken-down 
I n the element : and whenever a little while 
^ earning Illusion flutters up the sky^ 
S he presently swings to the gasping pitchy 
T fall bolt-like, 

I say^ all my life long close to I ''ve stared 
Into the clayy have with my chisel rasped 
T he marble off and stroked the lovely limbsy 
The breasts of women and the lips of boys 
I n stone. Again^ into the mould I ^ve poured 
T he wretched desolation of my dreams 
A nd bruised here and there the bronze. All this 
I have done my life longy and not so much 
As lifted up my eyes, 

B«/ now at last 
I pleasurably look to either side. 
Y or \ would paint some landscapes ere I die^ 
O ne or two landscapes of the view you see^ 
T he squalid plain meandered by the Seine. 
T here, when there^s moon, thro^ fumes of gray and 
T he silver river curls away ; beyond 
lt'*s night and vapid darkness infinite. 
A nd sitting at this window, I suppose 
A pallet on my thumb, and brushes and 
T he colours gently mixing with their oil: — 
L eaving my marbles in imagination 
¥ or final solace in a softer art. 
40 



Y oUy painter^ have enjoyed with all your self; 

Y ou ^ve little looked into the dark. But I 
Forged in the night. I/'j resting-time^ Vm old. 
Landscape will ease me somewhat toward the end. 



41 



ERIDE 



Dull words that swim upon the page 
T hro* filmy tears of joy and pain I 
P oor silly words^ my only gage ! 
M ere words^ recurrent as refrain I 

Y e prove me language less than nought 
And all the loss of utterance. 

Y e give me scraps of withered thought 
A nd sounds that meet as by a chance. 

If I should find ye once again. 
If you should come again to me, 
D ull words about my joy and pain. 
Mere words, what would ye signify? 



45 



ERIDE 

LjovCy I marvel what you are / 
Heaven in a pearl of dew ^ 
Lilies hearted ivith a star — 
All are you. 

Spring along your forehead shines 
A nd the summer blooms your breast. 
Graces of autumnal vines 
Kound you rest. 

B irds about a limpid rose 
Making song and light of wing 
While the warm wind sunny blows. 
So you sing. 

Darlingy if the little dust^ 
That I know is merely I, 
Have availed to win your trusty 
Let me die. 



B rown eyes I say^ yet say I blue. 
I think her mouth is a melody y 
Her bosom a petal sunned and new; 
Her hand is a passing sigh. 

Blue eyes I say^ yet somehow brown. 
Her mouth is the verge of all repose; 
Her breast a smoothed-out viol tone; 
Her hand is an early rose. 

47 



Be her eyes of blue or brown indeed^ 
Be colour or music what she is, 
I nothing know. But my lifers own need 
Is the fancy of her kiss. 



Clouds thro* the heaven flit 

Aprilward. 

There's the bud of a violet 

n the sward. 

B ranch and breeze sympathize 
E re they play^ — 

1 know that it's Spring to-day 
By your eyes. 

How shall I hold you fast 

N ow you are here P 

A tremor y and you have passed, 

A nd this year 

Only of all is ours 

Only is mine! — 

I see in your blue eyes shine 

All the year's flowers, 

H ereafter 1 7/ call you Springy 

hit tie girl! 

A nd christen each clustering 

Delicate curl 

Some' lovely meadow's name 

In the South, 

W here they say that music and youth 

S tay the same. 

48 



I held these tulips first^ before 

bringing you them. 

I passed the love I bear you o'er 

F lower and stem. 

And I would leave them at your door^ — 

\f at your hearths door they might stand! 

K eeping awhile 

T he world behind their petals and 

Crimson smile^ — 

L ike seas hid by a meadow-land. 



A trill of leaves is in the wold; 
I feel the wings of summer pasSy 
And sunlight in big drops of gold 
Falls on the seedy feathered grass. 

Some tiny cuckoo never seen 
B lows his own echo mild as mist. 
A deer there, stirring in the green I 
A squirrel, where the branches kissed. 

Far through, a sweep of aspen-boughs 
A nd birches whitening toward the crest 
Reclines, like river-grass, and flows 
A long the summer to the V^est, 

Farther away, till last of all 
In milky hazes lying furled 
Is — nothing more. ^T is we recall 
I njinity back to the world. 

49 



I n the bow-window that looks out 

O ver the sunset-coloured bay 

W e sat one evening, wondering and in doubt, 

T he water plashing on the quay 

Roused the warm air, and half-awake 

O ne hill we knew was changing golden-gray. 

We strained our sight upon the lake; 

We dared not anything to say. 

For fear your heart and mine might haply break. 

O ur tired eyes soon filled with tears, 

A nd we said nothing. But your hand 

Was like a heart that understands and hears. 



We missed the sunset, love, to-night — 
T he sunset on the sea that sings. 
Folding about its heart of light 
T he large and melancholy wings. 

A snowy gull may *ve moved along 
T he rose and gray and violet bands, 
Serene as thought and pure as song, 
Beyond our line of open sands; 

A moonbeam on the fisher net, 
A sail that lay upon the sea, 
A rim of pebbles darkly wet: 
1 1 all was not for you and me, 

A sunset lost, a life foregone I 
B eauty that asked our heart and died! 
50 



W hat said we? did we match the Sun 

W ith aught of Hearty my love? — IsAy bride y 

ne look you gave was twice a sky. 

1 kissed your handy you said a word 
That greater is for melody 

T han all the tides a coast-land heard. 

O ne sunset losty one look the more I — 
T he night is quieting the foam, 
¥i ear you? ^'Qome^^ says the endless shore^ 
A nd all the waves in murmur ^ " QomeT 



H e rests upon her knee his tired head; 
H/5 eyey long worriedy sleeps; 
A nd shey whose perfeSf love has nothing said. 
Her hand upon his forehead keeps. 

Thro* darkening windows blows the ancient spring; 

A planet trembleSy kind. 

Her large wet eyes are vastly wondering^ 

Her happy love resembles wind. 

The breeze about her finger stirs his hairy 
A nd her breath riseSy falls. 
S<j their unfolding presence thro* the air 
I n soft and low surprises calls. 

He touches her in dream and follows hery 
For nearness of her fails. 
And the spring night of green and gossamer 
A round beloved and lover pales. 

51 



I hear you singing in my breast^ 
I hear you chanting in my mind. 
Is it the wind? 

\ feel your form upon my eyes, 
I feel your fingers press my sight. 
Is it the night? 

I hear the little noise of feet 

And footsteps come and come again. 

Is it the rain? 

A nd all alone with memory 

y[y brain grows anxious for the day. 

Y ou^re long away. 



^^W ill you look down once more^just once? 
D own to the ground and keep your veil 
D rawn oer your half-guessed countenance 
And smile — so frail? 

^^ Thank you! For I have had a friend 
W hose image came most vividly 
Upon my soul, when with that bend 
You looked from me, 

^^Gone? Yes! you cannot think how far y 
beyond the uttermost of thought, 
She^s grown, as far things do, a star 
In heaven s hand caught, 

5* 



" B ut starsy you knoWy are very cold 
A nd always white. They never bless 
J ust youy and in the night'' s great fold 
Grow vague and less. 

"A«i so it^s sweet to feel sometimes 

A colour y gesture^ sound — a turn 

T hat makes the heart grow dull with rhymes 

And the souVs lips hum. 

^^Y esl sometimes fast about my heart 
Something troubles me that I knew; 
I find a stranger made me starty 
A s now did you. 

^■^ So pray donU think me rude. That face — 
Y or the mere memory I would die. 
Y ou^ve warmed my life with your — her grace. 
G ood-nighty good-bye" 



If you should lightfyy as I ^ve known yoUy come 
And find me of an evening crying here 
At open windows of a changing homCy 
W hile beyond gar deny houseSy trecy and dome 
Fades out the day and year; 

If you should gently touch my shoulder y and 
T urning I V see as with a sweet surprise 
Y ou thercy above me and about mcy standy 
W hile the warm sunset passed a lucid hand 
Over your face and eyes; 

53 



If then you softly^ as I ^ve heard yoUy said 
T hat all was well^ I know not what or why. 
But Just for words^ sake told me; while your head 
Moved roundy you passed away; and in your stead 
An autumn night came by: 

S till would the happiness of having stood 
W ith one so nearly you tho* gone so soon^ 
B ring to my solitude a little good^ — 
As one who's gladdened in a midnight wood 
For having seen the moon. 



Sometimes you seem so far away^ 
T he very noise of thinking lulls^ 
Andy on my vision^ colour dulls 
To vapour with sick wings of gray, 

I wander out of Time and Mind, 
The sense of my own life is lost, 

ne thought goes touching like a ghost 

T hat found yet knows not where to find, 

A nd all I know is just the jar 
Of chime that trembles in my ear; 
And all I ask is if the year 

1 s never tired as others are. 



Y ou charm a window in the South, 
Your brow seen by the golden star; 
And through warm dreams the gentle war 
Of thought lures laughter to your mouth. 

54 



T he wind lulls in the olive grove 
A nd all becomes a vaporous sigh — 
L ow preludes to your ecstasy 
Who love too much to think of love, — 

OSfober is in midnight swound 
W ith just a vague gray blot for moony 
A nd like a scum the rotting brown 
Of dead leaves drifts along the ground; 

While I sit waiting for a time 
I know not hoWy and marvel forth 
Upon the vastness of the 'Worthy 
T /// marvel mellows into rhyme. 



I heard a dead leaf run, \t crossed 

Mjf way. For dark I could not see. 

I / rattled crisp and thin with frost 

Out to the lea. 

My steps I hast*nedy I was lost 

For all the grief that came to me. 

For now and ever thro* the host 

Of sounds that blow from shrub and treey — 

A little echo sharply tossedy — 

The footstep chills me of her ghost ; 

And knowing naught I weep most drearily. 



55 



[II 



There^s just a hit of twilight yet ^ 
A glossy gray that floats the sea 
F rom yonder y where the daylight sety 
To me, 

A II else is violet growing dark. 
Southward, a sorrow breaks the sky. 
The tide in languor of its mark 
Is high. 

And old night thickens on the strand. 
There is no motion hut the wave's. 
Along the leagues of listening sand 
That raves, 

A nd nothing now. The lighthouse lit. 
If ships there he, they^re far from coast, 
A II ^s safe. But something infinite 
Is lost. 



O ne spot where every day declines 

In a last red ray 

From the circle poised on a hill of pines; 

O ne knoll, where an elnCs twist-hranches play 

With the air, elate; 

And below, our bench of a battered gray : 

In summer, ^twas bright — when the sun sets late, 
T 00 late for regret ! 

And the winds lie down somewhere to wait 
S6 



^ hile daylight goes and gray streaks fret 

The heaven's blues 

And round the mid-sky nighfs arms are met. 

B ut we went to-day and the long sinews 

Of our elm were lame 

W ith wind that ran in the dafs lost clues. 

E arly the sun set, vague and tame, 

T hro' gathering mists 

The rain fell chiding us why we came. 

A drizzle f lis the autumn day, 
T he sun will never here come back^ 
A nd weeds and foliage in decay 
hie draggled in the cart-wheeVs track. 

Yrom blackened woods along the plain 
A vapour passes out^ a sound 
Of boughs grown weak thro* nights ofrain^ 
T hat sink and shatter on the ground, 

T he meadow turf is all a swampy 
There*s nothing left of summer. Come, 
T he air turns dark and deadly damp, 
Come^for it^s very far to home, 

T he year for you and me 

\s nearly done, 

T he leaves there^ two or three^ 

Are brown, 

'Not a bird sings. 

It is time to think of other things. 

S7 



Y our secret was my hope^ 

Y our deeper name ; 

A nd you perhaps did ope 

T he same, — 

Only the word 

F or being spoke yet was not heard. 

And as a leaf that knows 

I / cannot meet 

A nother leaf that grows 

So sweety 

Hearing it call. 

Springs in the autumn windy to fall: 

So did I hoping doubty 

Till thro' the dark 

falling awayy went out 

The sparky — 

¥,ver to be 

A star gone down below the sea. 



N ot thaty if you had known at ally 

Y ou would have done what now you do, 
God knowsy no blame shall ever fall 
Of mine on you, 

I only marvel that it all be true, 

T hey say that love *s a mustard seed 
Upon the acres of the heart; 
I / spreads from one part like a weed 
T another part, 

Y et Spring is single and the days depart. 

58 



I know not why^ but so it is! 

T hat pain is such a simple thing. 

Here to your hand I bring my kisSy 

And yet nothing 

Can tell you nearly what it is I bring. 

And why? — I/V hard to cipher Yates 

A nd Distances^ as yours from me, 

Not science even separates 

So fixedly; — 

A nd then we tantalize our destiny ! 

Yes, marvel how the chances cross 
And weave these spider-webs of wire. 
Men live who say there* s gain in loss! 
And yet "Desire 
Revives like ferns on a "November fire. 

I / comes to only a memory, 

W^ have too many memories^ 

A nd somehow I believe we die 

Of things like these, 

Loving what was not, might not be, nor is. 



L ike a pearl dropped in red dark wine^ 

Y our pale face sank within my heart, 
N ot to be mine, yet always mine. 

Y our eyes, like flowers from apart 

T heir frail and shaded gates of dream, 
hooked all a meadow's light astart 

59 



W ith sunrise^ and your smile did seem 

As when below a letting rain 

T he water-drops with sunset gleam, 

I thought my vision was not vain; 
I felt my cramped heart stir and move 
W hich now is pressed with little pain, 

I dreamed the dream one wonders of — 
Y our face of pearly so pale and wise. 
I saw^ and murmured " Y^ife is Love." 

T he dust of folly filled my eyes. 
I sangy and opened in your name 
C rocuses yellow with moonrise. 

I played with shadows at their game; 
The meadow thought my song was wind, 
I called the sunrise up : it came. 

Sweet sun-warmed grasses did I bind 

Infancies of your hair. My song 

W as yoUy and you were all my mind. — 

T he charm, the splendour, and the wrong 
W /"// drive you thro* the earth, to try 
Of you and pleasure which is strong, — 

'While I remember. Cry on cry 
My autumn V gone. A horrid blast 
Blows out my sunset from the sky. 

ISiothing is left and all is past; 
Rain settles like a quiet air, 
60 



And as a pearl in red wine cast 
Glows like a drop of moonlight there^ 

Y our face possesses my despair. 

Receive my love; I ask no more, 
R eceive^ I have no more to give, 
T he heart and spirit of me bore 
All of this little gift, Receive! 

I fancied as in dream I passed 
My arms afraid with care and strove 
A bout you^ to have gleaned at last 
Some late and stilly wished-for love^ — 

N^ more the wild wide flames that leap 
Out of a moment down our years ^ 
To smoulder in endangering sleepy 
To glitter under tender tears^ — 

B ut something dear and gradual 
W ithin your slowly opening soul: 

Y our nearly love^ your nearly all 

W hich comes with years to be the very whole, 

Y ou would give otherwise and more^ 

G ive much more and forget you gave^ — 

A s over-seas in summer pour 

The wide blue swinging breadths of wave, 

YeSy and your vision of desire 
Is richer than the sunrise and 
P rofounder than the sea and higher 
Than the last light these heavens command. 

6i 



Y ou suffer thirsty and waiting brood 
I mpatiently one day to strain 
F rom out this life of mood and food 
The stuffs of ecstasy and pain: — 

T /// squandering in royal waste 
T he passion of your youth upon 
S ome pitiable hearty you taste 
The wines and fever of oblivion/ 



I know. — Your dream is mine^ that was. 

A nd quickly far within your eyes 

All of my life began to pass 

A nd wander out in seas and skies, 

B ut youy whom all my life adored^ 
W hile I go following in your way^ 
C an not so much as speak the word; — 
¥or there be lies no tongue can say, 

H ow strange it is, the point we lack 
J ust to possess the spirit^ s own. 
And failing this, to tremble back 
Among unfinished things alone! 

Vass by, dear heart, — and take from me 
This charm for which a diver dove 
Of old down the unruined sea, — 
And taking mine, give to another thy love. 



62 



IV 



No, noy 'tis very much too late. 
I thought it mockery that you said 
You loved me; but a certain fate 
L owers your voice and bows your head. 
I tell you^ you desire to wake the dead. 

'T is pitiful so to drag out 

T he sorry quarrel in our soulsy 

T /// even the blood suspends in doubt 

A nd each full impulse backward rolls. 

M eantime the hour regardless passing tolls. 

Yes! think how year on year is gone. 

You went your way and hummed your dreams 

Of passion and oblivion 

I n lands where terrible sunbeams 

Shiver upon the leaping arch of streams. 

Your heart was violent and you stretched 
Tiptoe after the stars your hand! — 
'Twas but a willow-bough you fetched. 
T he argosies of your command 
Returned, saying beyond there was no land. 

You cursed the woman! s life for lame. 
To do! you criedy and labouring 
L ike men bring in the distant aim ! — 
W hat was this aim you needs must bring. 
Your one, your altogether desired thing P 

You knew not, doubting day by day. 
Like yours how many lives are lived! 

63 



H ow seldom all is given away^ 

YLow little of every gift received! 

How the heart most of all is least believed! 

W hen at your going my grief was new 

And the long future all to waste, 

I said farewell to more than you : 

I wandered up into the Vast 

A nd wandering have imagined peace at last. 

S ////, perhaps, under leaves that lie 

Y ou^d feel the roots of sorrow end 

Here in my bosom dyingly: 

Mere threads they are, too frail to tend! 

Vve done with my own living, O my friend. 

For what were gained if I were yours? 

Fever and frenzy of the blood, 

T he pleasure which no surfeit cures, 

Endless desire, hunger, feud — 

A nd, at the end of passion, solitude, — 

You know how, born by a small hearth, 

W hile out in the sad dark it snows 

And ^t is for months an unseen earth, 

T he soul as by remembrance goes 

After the warm vineyard and burning rose, 

"V live long years by stream and hill 
Within the southern light, with men 
W ho speak delicious language: — till 
T he pain of being alien 
U rges one elsewhere yet not home again, 

64 



So are our lives, I love you more. 

But other hearts by destiny 

M ust needs possess what they adore 

A nd have it, to live with and to die^ 

To strangle or soothe with kisses. Not so I. 

By silences within a dream 

And bird-songs of a spring sunrise. 

To the onward measure of a stream 

Nearer the sea where quiet is, 

I love you more, much more, but otherwise. 



If I have wronged you in the days 
Bygone but unforgotten now, 
I make no pleading for your grace. 
M.y tongue is bitter. "Leave me, go. 

You have no pity, none. You live 
I mpatient and unreconciled. 
N ay, were you a mother, I believe 
You never could well love your child. 

You^e cracked the sense of life and death 
W ith passions in you that despise 
The thing you love and choke its breath, 
T ill unrecriminate it dies, — 

I / dies to you ; and nothing then. 
Nor art nor hope nor force nor spell 
Can worry back the lost again, — 
L ost, lost, and irrecoverable. 

65 



A nd then, God knowSy some things there be 
W here never pardon yet was known : 
W hat words have leapt from you to me ! 
E noughy henceforward I 'w my own, 

YeSy men are selfish — Tell me^you 
^ ho pluck my thoughts for flying fast y 
Ask all the years to bey and rue 
T he unalterably separate pasty 

W hat is this that is generous ? 
Can just a word we used to know 
I n childhoody commonly y to us 
Have grown a vulgar riddle so? 

Sometimes I think we never mety 
Such immense walls of iron and ice 
'between us infinitely set 
Spring blind into the spirit* s skies. 

Sometimes I think we never mety — 
'T had surely better beeny to spare 
This nervous wringing of regret y 
T his hope that tightens to despair, 

W^ have not understoody for all 
W e deeply lived and clearly said. 
And without knowledge love must f ally — 
hike this ofoursy that lying dead 

Clamours for burial. It is timey 
\t was time in much earlier daySy 
B efore we soiled our lips with crimey 
T hat you and I went our two ways, 
66 



N ow in the palace gardens warm with age^ 

n lawn and flower-hed this afternoon 
The thin November-coloured foliage 

J ust as last year unfastens lilting down^ 

A nd round the terrace in gray attitude 
T he very statues are becoming sere 
With long presentiment of solitude. 
Most of the life that I have lived is here, 

H ere by the path and autumris earthy grass 
And chestnuts standing down the breadths of sky , 

1 ndeed I know not how it came to pass^ 
The life I lived here so unhappily, 

Y et blessing over all! I do not care 

What wormwood I have ate to cups of gall; 
I care not what despairs are buried there 
U nder the ground^ noy I care not at all. 

N^}', if the heart have beaten^ let it break! 
I have not loved and lived but only this 
"betwixt my birth and grave. Dear Spirit^ take 
T he gratitude that pains, so deep it is. 

W hen spring shall be again, and at your door 

Y ou stand to feel the mellower evening windy 
R emember if you will my heart is pure, 

P erfeSfly pure and altogether kind; 



67 



That not an after cry of all our strife 

T roubles the love I give you and the faith : 

S ay to yourself that at the ends of life 

yiy arms are open to you^ life and death, — 

How much it aches to linger in these things! 
I thought the perfect end of love was peace 
Over the long-forgiven sufferings. 
B ut something else, I know not what it is, 

The words that came so nearly and then not, 
The vanity, the error of the whole, 
T he strong cross-purpose, oh, I know not what 
C ries dreadfully in the distra^ied soul. 

T he evening fills the garden, hardly red; 

A nd autumn goes away, like one alone. 

'W ould I were with the leaves that thread by threa 

S often to soil, I would that I were one. 



68 



SONNETS 



SONNETS 

\ ou say^ Columbus with his argosies 

W ho rash and greedy took the screaming main 

A nd vanished out before the hurricane 

I nto the sunset after merchandiscy 

T hen under western palms with simple eyes 

T rafficked and robbed and triumphed home again : 

Y ou say this is the glory of the brain 
And human life no other use than this? 
I then do answering say to you : The line 
Of wizards and of saviour s^ keeping trust 

I n that which made them pensive and divine^ 

V asses before us like a cloud of dust, 

What were theyP A^forSy ill and mad with wine^ 
And all their language babble and disgust. 



71 



1 hey say that Cleopatra who of yore 
R eceived the moon on her dishevelled hair, 
hooking into his eyes, and breathed the fair 
L ow wind along Mediterranean s shore 
When Summer swelled the starsy — Now at her door 
The wanderer sees her like a jewel far e^ 
A nd drawn by passion thro* the beating air 
To hery hefallsy her dagger at the core. 
Through rifts of scudding shadow y while his trance 
"Slackens in deathy he feels about him lean 
H er olive breasts and armSy and in her glance 
Great wings of fire and midnight closing in: 
H is wasting arms do make a vain advance, 
S <? I unto the life I would have been. 



72 



They lived enamoured of the lovely moon^ 
The dawn and twilight on their gentle lake. 
T hen Vassion marvellously born did shake 
Their breasts and drave them into the mid-noon, 
Their lives did shrink to one desire^ and soon 
T hey rose fire-eyed to follow in the wake 
Of one eternal thought^ — when sudden brake 
T heir hearts. They died, in miserable swoon. 
Of all their agony not a sound was heard. 
The glory of the Earth is more than they. 
She asks her lovely image of the day: 
A flower grows., a million boughs are green^ 
A nd over moving ocean-waves the bird 
Chases his shadow and is no more seen. 



73 



ON RODIN'S "l'ILLUSION, SCEUR d'iCARE" 

S^^ Started up from where the lizard lies 

A mong the grasses' dewy hair, and flew 

T hro leagues of lower air until the blue 

V^ as thin and pale and fair as Echo is. 

Crying she made her upward flight. Her cries 

"Were naught, and naught made answer to her view. 

The air lay in the light and slowly grew 

A marvel of white void in her eyes. 

She cried: her throat was dead. Deliriously 

She looked, and lo! the Sun in master mirth 

Glowed sharp, huge, cruel. Then brake her noble eye. 

She fell, her white wings rocking down the abyss, 

A ghost of ecstasy, backward to earth. 

And shattered all her beauty in a kiss. 



74 



M.y friendy who in this March unkindy uncouth^ 
Biding the full-blown Summer and the skies 
T hat change not^ stayest unmoved and true and wise 
T hat in thy love thou lovest not me but lUruth^ 
I VJhat should we fear that Age corrode with ruth 
I O ur lovesy who love the thing that never dieSy 
B uilding us archways unto Varadise 
Of all that greets the souFs all-fowering youth? 
S is it, that often parted, rarely met, 
I And never blessed with gifts of genial Time 
Wherein might grow the seed we have but sown. 
Our hearts remember tho* our minds forget 
H ow on from year to year and clime to clime 
S tr etches the love that makes of all but one. 



'Your image walks not in my common way. 
I Rarely I conjure up your face, recall 
I Your language, think to hear your footstep fall 
\\n my lost home or see your eyes* sweet play. 
Rather you share the life that sees not day, 
' Immured within the spirifs deep control, 
W here thro* the tide less quiets of the soul 
Y our kingdom stretches far and far away. 
For these our joys and griefs are less than we. 
T he deeper truths ask not our daily thought — 
T heir strength is peace, they know that we believe. 
And whatsoever of sublime there be 
R eaches and deepens and at last is wrought 
I nto that life we are but do not live. 

75 



Ill 

V^ ere you called home and I were left to grief 
I V not go down disconsolate to the shore 
A nd brooding mix my language in the roar 
Of waves in spasm upon the tortured reef; 
^or climb the lonely mountain where the leaf 
S ings its wide whisper and the ravens soar 
'Prom shadows of unholy ellebore 
L oved by the owlets^ blind and dull and deaf 
I should not loudly mourn and vex the earth 
With strewings of my ashes; none would find 
My reft souPs sorrow in the gushing eye, 
B«/ my dull world would be a world of dearth^ 
C heerless the sunrise^ the sweet sky unkind 
A nd life grayer^ my heart not asking why. 



76 



IN A CHURCHYARD 

How Strange^ beneath the blue and happy sky 

And the reviving greenery of the trees 

S>opale their shadow blows along the breeze^ 

To read on polished graves the little cry 

Of this delirious immortality ! 

Well was it said for ally for each of these 

^^The poor in heart,'' who still in death displease 

T he flowers and wind and youth that passes by. 

How but for them the children of the earth 

Here, where the grass is fresh and glittering, 

Would share with herb and beast the common birth! 

And when they'd played away this day of Spring 

How sweetly would they fold at evening 

Their petals, hands, and wings at nature's hearth. 



77 



W hen I hereafter shall recover thee 

And^ on the further margin fugitive 

silently bringing upy if aught survive 

T he raging wind and old disastrous seOy 

I disembark^ O darlings verily 

To hold thee to my hearty to feel alive 

T he tremor of thy lipSy thy bosom^ — /'/ will drive 

The dark in shreds out of eternity, 

S ometimes I ask me why the morning sun 

Returns or later ^ when the day is done^ 

I let the dreams about my pillow strain ; 

B ut then it sounds across my dying brain 

Like torrents in the moonlight foaming on 

B etween enormous mountains to the plain. 



78 



Lho* inland far with mountains prisoned round, 
Oppressed beneath a space of heavy skies, 
Y et hear I oft the far-off water-cries 
A nd vague vast voices which the winds confound. 
W hile as a harp I sing, touched with the sound 
M ost secret to its soul, the visions rise 
I n stately dream, and lifting up my eyes 
I see the naked mountains beacon-crowned. 
Far in the heaven the golden moon illumes, 
T he crowded stars toil in the webs of night 
A nd the sharp meteors seam the higher glooms. 
Then shifts my dream: the mellow evening falls ; 
Alone upon the shore in the wet light 
I stand, and hear the infinite sea that calls. 



79 



ON SOME SHELLS FOUND INLAND 

1 hese are my murmur-laden shells that keep 
Afresh voice tho* the years be very gray, 
T he wave that washed their lips and tuned their lay 
Is gone, gone with the faded ocean sweep, 
The royal tide, gray ebb and sunken neap 
And purple midday, — gone! To this hot clay 
M ust sing my shells, where yet the primal day, 
I ts roar and rhythm and splendour will not sleep, 
W hat hand shall join them to their proper sea 
If all be gone? Shall they forever feel 
Glories undone and worlds that cannot be? — 
'T were mercy to stamp out this agld wrong, 
D ash them to earth and crunch them with the heel 
A nd make a dust of their seraphic song. 



80 



i ho* lack of laurels and of wreaths not one 
P rove you our lives abortive^ shall we yet 
V aunt us our single aim^ our hearts full set 
T win the guerdon which is never won. 
Witness^ a purpose never is undone. 
And tho' fate drain our seas of violet 
To gather round our lives her wide-hung nety 
Memories of hopes that are not shall atone. 
N ot wholly starless is the ill-starred life^ 
Not all is night in failure y and the shield 
S ometimes well grasped^ tho^ shattered in the strife. 
And here while all the lowering heaven is ringed 
With our loud death-shouts echoed^ on the field 
Stands forth our l^ike^ proudy tho* broken-winged. 



8i 



Liive blindly and upon the hour. The hordy 
W ho was the Future^ died full long ago. 
Knowledge which is the "Past is folly, G<7, 
Voor childy and be not to thyself abhorred. 
Around thine earth sun-winged winds do blow 
And planets roll; a meteor draws his sword; 
The rainbow breaks his seven-coloured chord 
A nd the long strips of river-silver flow : 
Awake! Give thyself to the lovely hours, 
D r inking their lipSy catch thou the dream inflight 
About their fragile hairs'* aerial gold. 
Thou art divine^ thou livest^ — as of old 
Apollo springing naked to the light. 
And all his island shivered into flowers. 



82 



De still. The Hanging Gardens were a dream 

That over Persian roses flew to kiss 

T he curUd lashes of Semiramis, 

T roy never was^ nor green S>kamander stream. 

Vrovence and Troubadour are merest lies. 

The glorious hair of Venice was a beam 

M ade within Titian^ s eye. The sunsets seem^ 

T he world is very old and nothing is. 

Be still. Thou foolish thing, thou canst not wake, 

N or thy tears wedge thy soldered lids apart, 

B ut patter in the darkness of thy heart. 

Thy brain is plagued. Thou art a frighted owl 

Blind with the light of life thou^ldst not forsake. 

And 'Error loves and nourishes thy soul. 



83 



ON THE CONCERT 

yy hen first this canvas felt Qiorgione^s hand^ 
¥rom out his souPs intensity he drew 
In lines most acrid yet superbly few 
A many — a soul^ whose water at command 
Of pain had stiffened to ice, whom grief had banned, 
T /// music even and harmonfs rich dew 
¥ ell fruitless, Foisedy defiant and cahn he threw 
To the earth that wronged him his lifers reprimand. 
Y ety as he dreWy a wind mellow with dole 
Of past life as of sea-coast pine did rise 
And warm the rigour of the painter's soul. 
For his tear-moistened fingers warmed the fr ore 
Hard colours of the cheeky and in the eyes 
Set the large stare of Sorrow's Nevermore. 



84 



1 he melancholy year is dead with rain, 
D rop after drop on every branch pursues, 
Yrom far away beyond the drizzled flues 
A twilight saddens to the window pane. 
And dimly thro* the chambers of the brain^ 
F rom place to place and gently touching^ moves 
"My one and irrecoverable love*s 
D ear and lost shape one other time again, 
So in the last of autumn for a day 
S ummer or summer^ s memory returns, 
So in a mountain desolation burns 
S ome rich belated flower^ and with the gray 
Sick weather y in the world of rotting ferns 
F rom out the dreadful stones it dies away. 



85 



As a sad man^ when evenings grayer groWy 
D esires his violin^ and call to call 
Tunes with unhappy heart the interval; 
T hen after prelude^ suffering his bow. 
Along the crying strings his fingers fall 
To some persuasion born of long ago, 
"W hile mixed in higher melodies the low 
"Dull song of his lifers heard no more at all: 
S with thy picture I alone devise^ 
Massing on thy unco loured face the tone 
Of memory* s autumnal paradise ; 
A nd all myself for yearning weary lies 
¥ alien to but thy shadow^ near upon 
The void motion of eternities. 



86 



He said: "!/*/« his image I was made, 

I am his equal and across the land 

W e two should make our journey hand in hand 

L ike brothers dignified and unafraid.^"* 

A nd God that day was walking in the shade. 

To whom he said: ^^The world is idly plannedy 

We cross each other y let us understand 

Thou who thou arty I who I am,^ he said. 

D arkness came down. And all that night was heard 

T remendous clamour and the broken roar 

Of things in turmoil driven down before. 

T hen silence. Morning broke, and sang a bird. 

He lay upon the earthy his bosom stirred; 

B ut God was seen no longer any more. 



87 



LAKEWARD 



LAKEWARD 

1 will soon be sunrise. 'Down the valley waiting 
¥ar over slope and mountain-height the firs 
\] ndulate dull and furry under the beating 
Heaven of autumn stars, 

T westward yet the summits hang in slumber 
hike frozen smoke; there ^ growing wheel on wheel^ 
As "'twere an upward wind of rose and amber 
Goes up the sky of steel; 

A nd indistinguishable thro* the valley 
An endless murmur freshens as ofbeeSy — 
The stream that gathering torrents frantically 
Churns away thro* the trees, — 

yiountainSy farewell! Into your crystal winter 
To linger on unworlded and alone 
A nd feel the glaciers of your bosom enter 
O ne and another my own^ 

And on the snow that falling edges nearer 
To lose my very shade^ — ^twere well^ ^twere done 
Had I not in me the soul of a wayfarer! 
N^, let me wander down 

T he road that, as the boulders higher and higher 
G narrower each to each and hold the gloom^ 
Y allows like me the water ^ loud desire 
Of a sun-sweetened home. 



91 



And as I pass^ methinks once more the Titan 
from in the bosom of the humid rocks^ 
Where yet his aged eyes grow vague and whiten 
W eary and wet his locksy 

Gazes away upon this brightened weather 
As asking it in reason and in rhyme 
How long shall mountain iron and ice together 
Hold against summer-time. 

Long, surely/ long, perhaps/ but not for ever, 
"^ow here across the buried road and field, 
Torn from the dizzy flanks up there that quiver, 
D own to the plain and spilled 

I n sand and wreckage lies the avalanche's 
'Dead mass under the sun, and not a sound/ — 
T he morning grows and from the rich pine-branches 
S hadows make blue the ground. 

T wander south / Already here the grasses 
F eather and glint across the sunny air, 
It^s warmer. Up the road a peasant passes 
"^r own-skinned and dark of hair, 

Some of an autumn glamour on the highway 
Softens the dust, and yonder I have seen 
Catching the sunlight something in the byway 
Else than an evergreen, 



92 



And weeds along the ditch are parching. — Sudden 
Once more from either side the ranges draw 
-^ear each to each; beneath struggle and ?nadden 
Down in the foamy flaw 

The waters, and, a span across, the boulders 
Stand to the burning heaven upright and cold. 
Then drawing lengthily along their shoulders 
Vapours of white and gold 

-& low from the lowland upward; all the gloaming 
(Quivers with violet; here in the wedge 
The tunnelled road goes narrow and outcoming 
S tealthily on the edge 

hies free. The outlines have a gentle meaning. 
W illows and clematis, foliage and grain ! 
And the last mountain falls in terraces to the greening 
I nfinite autumn plain. 

O further southward, down the brooks and valley, on 
And past the lazy farms and orchards, on! 
It smells of hay, and thro' the long Italian 
F lowerful afternoon 

Sodden with sunlight, green and gold, the country 
Suspends her fruit and stretches ripe and still 
Between the clumsy fig and silver plane-tree 
Circled, from hill to hill 



93 



And down the vale along the running river: 
The vale^ the river and the hi lis ^ that take 
The perfea south and here at last for ever 
Merge into thee^ O Lakel 

Sunset-enamoured in the autumnal hours! 
y^hen large and westering his heavy rays 
"^ all from the^ vineyards and the garden-flowers 
Hazily o'er thy face ^ 

And colouring thy bosom with a lover's 
^arm and quick lips and hesitating hand, 
Yie murmurs to thee while the twilight hovers 
L ilac about the strand^ 

Thou, mid the grape-hung terraces low-levelled, 
Lookest into the green and crimson sky 
^ith swimming eyes and auburn hair dishevelled 
Radiant in ecstasy ' 

'Tis evening. In the open blueness stretches 
A feathery lawn of light from moon to shore 
And a boat-load of labourers homeward plashes 
Ringing ''Amor, Amor.'' ' 



94 



PROMETHEUS PYRPHOROS 

TO E. F. 



DRAMATIS PERSONJE 
PANDORA. PYRRHA. 

PROMETHEUS. EPIMETHEUS. 

DEUKALION. THE VOICES OF ZEUS, 



DEU. 


PYR. 


DEU, 



PROMETHEUS PYRPHOROS 

bcENE. The plain ofHaimonia, In the centre, a rude stone 
dwelling^ in the door of which stands prometheus. The 
voice of PANDOKA always as from within. Total obscurity, 
nothing on the scene being distinguishable, 

[crawling in], 

H ow dark it is, how dark and miserable ! 

IjV thou, DeukalionP 

Ahy thy voice! It's I. 

Mj; moment's journey seems a dreadful year, 

I see nothing — Where? where? is home here? 
PYR. Y es. 

Thou soundest surely nearer, Yivw — 
DEU. A/ last. 

woman, what is this that makes us be. 
Threading like worms the cavern where before — 

PYR. Shows there as yet no daylight? 

DEU. N^, nowhere, 

T his dark can never lift, this heavy night 
W hich lies and stagnates infinitely. N(7, 
It cannot lift, I know not when it fell; 
S carce I remember how seemed the white sunlight, 
S debile is my memory and the brain 
C lean hollowed out, 

PYR. All round me and within 

It is like pools of cold. But frewood — say. 
Bring' St thou any? 

DEU. Aye, but prithee to what end? 

1 crawled abroad the fields there picking up 

S ome herbs to eat, and fuel; but this I know. 
The tinder holds no longer any spark 

97 



And fire is vanished irrecoverably, 

PYR. Nd'j', try once more, 

D E u . T ry once again forsooth ! 

I care notyfor the trial ^s vain. Once more! 
1 7/ rub the sticks again together, N<7, 
They breed no heat, 

PYR. 17/ pile the firestuff — wait — 

hest the one spark be lost, 

D E u . The spark is deady 

I say^ the light has ended^ and henceforth 
M isery and blackness unendurable 
S t and in the eyes that saWy the hearth that burned. — 
I draw no fire, 

PYR. W here art thou? FlintSy here — strike again. 

D E u . So did I a thousand times and nothing leapt, 
Alas! 

PYR. Ah mcy how dark it is and cold. 

PRO. [aside], 

I / bursts the heart to see them suffer thus, 

DEU. Strange^ strange how since the fatal evening all 
This mound of darkness fell. Father "Prometheus 
T hen cheated God and offered him in guile 
W ind-eggs and unsubstantial things : wherefor 
W e people pay the wrath that never endsy 
hife in the dark and obscure loneliness^ — 
K nowing nor when to sleep nor when to wake^ 
E ating what herbs we gather here, abroad 
T he plain grazed by the kine we cannot find, 
I hear them in the dark : they toss their headsy 
H aving slept much too longy and wander on 
A nd trampky or halting with outstretched neck 
Low stubborn none knows whereyfar thro* the night, 
98 [The cattle low,] 



Hear them! 
PAN. [singing]. 

As a poplar feels the sun's enfolding kiss, 
A nd softly alone on the quiet plain 
Y ields to him all her silver trellises^ 
A ghost of green in the golden rain, 
And trembles lightly thro' the shining air 
N early unseen and melting in sky 
%ave for a shadow on the grasses there: 
S(9 over the earth and world am I. 
T he lips of Gods and mortals in a dream 
Have lain on my lips of a sumfner night: 
They fade like images down-stream, 
Bm/ I have remained behind the light. 
I give the giver more than that he sought, 
And more than I give am I, much more: 
As words are to an everlasting thought, 
S less than the mother the child she bore. 

p Y R . W hat says she? 

D E u . A time ago, the God of Gods 

Z eus came to adore her, and the immortal arms 
C losing about her gave her travailing, 

PYR. Did he so? 

D E u . Aye, like a master so he did. 

S he knows perchance then something, knows perhaps 
If we're thus brutishly to suffer always and 
Yorever gaze upon this frozen void. — 
K now' St thou our fate, Vandora ? Tell me, mother ! — 
^he has not heard. 

Or sorrow blocks her ears. 
For ever since God approached her, on the ground, 

99 



C. 



PYR 



DEU 



H er silence threaded by dull murmurs^ lone 
She sits up stonelike Against the rude house-wall, 

n hand and knee some while ago I crawled 
Up to her^ and^ saying our heavy troubles^ passed 
Over her cool immobile face my hand', 

1 kissed her eyes^ I touched and held her chin : 
B ut all that while she said nothing to me^ 

R emaining passive^ silent, pitiless. 
Albeit her eyes were very wide awake, 

p Y R . ^he pensive cannot sleep, 

DEU. O misery, 

W ould that I were asleep a long long time, 
beyond to-morrow and the summer'* s end! 
N^j, sometimes down my dark bewildered brain 
Stumble fantastic hopes that — like the birds 
Vve found afield dismembered and undone, 
L ike beasts that shut their swimming eyes, and leaves 
That eddy dixzily down the nervous wind — 
So we may fail and fall, be swept away 
Yrom what we are, 

PYR. I too, T>eukalion. 

Labour at last is shame within the soul. 

Have I not faithfully day after day 

Vptorn the crusty earth and smashed the clots. 

Scattering with thee the everlasting seeds? 

H ave I not homeward carried every day 

Upon my head pitchers of spring-water 

A nd packs of straw for bedding; and arranged 

This place we live in cleanly and cheeringlyP 

Yes, here have I within thy warm embrace 

S eason on season, long with agony, 

yiy brain sunstricken and my body sick 

100 



W ith travelling the dreadful acres^ borne 

^Daughters and sons and sons and daughters; whom 

A / midnight then^ against their crying^ alone 

I rocked in my exhausted arms, I suckled 

And bending watched^ till, as between my brows 

It hammered thuds of slumber, very late ^ 

A little thin gray morning thro* the chinks 

T old the disaster of another day. 

And I have reared them and pitifully taught them, 

My hand upon their hair, my broken truths, — 

S laboured in their welfare I and in pain 

S^ scourged their weakness! ^oe is me, alas! 

T hey never gave me thanks, no, nor so much 

As looked a little in my hungry eyes, 

Rather, against the time of strength, rebellious 

They fret their freedom out, and last of all 

Abandoning me for another world 

G down the sunset, beiyig seen no more. 

D E u . Y es, over fields we sowed they went away, 

T rampling our harvest down. And here we lie 

A II hedgld in with hoar and darkness, old 

F or staring on the sodden vacancy. 

I would I knew what thing is in my heart 

To stamp away so hardly! but for it, 

I 'w that much tired and aching-desolate 

I V pass away in earth, 

PRO. [ aside ] . How horrible 

Is now become their life! 

P Y R . I / wearies me 

To think of further being, against the time 
N ot yet bygone. Yor then it needs must be 
yiy breasts will shrivel up, my faded flesh 

lOI 



DEU. 



S tarve on the joints^ and all the bloom I was^ 
T he rose and perfume of their pleasure^ shrink 
Into a thing of shame, 

beyond recall 
The labour of our lives now desiccates, 
O ur sweat was poured for nothing; we have bled 
W ounded with ignorance in such a task 
As irks one in the very memory oft, 

PRO. \_coming forward']. 

T hen let us now remember nothing more^ 
Bw/ blindly hope in spite of all, And I 
W ho once defied the Godsy again to-day 
Stand and demand our dignities of them. 
We will not suffer thuSy we will not go 
D arkly and despicably tumbling down 
The road of life. For we be something more; 
Nor quite in vain infinite earth obeys 
T he plough we fashioned. All indeed is ours! 
W e are the crown of nature and her lord. 

DEU. O hold thy peace^ desperate man I The GodSy 
T hy littleness to shoWy have now been pleased 
Th takcyfor matter of their anger y us 
W ho serviceably did our common task. 
Thou piFst our suffering up, What is thy heart 
T bring curse after curse upon thy children, all 
For idle show in the face of destiny? 

PRO. 'T is time we stood up as beforey and looked, 
'R rushing the meshes from our for eheady forth 
Upon the sunshine and the rolling corn, 

DEU. To bring upon this woman and me, upon 
A // generationsy vanity and a life 
F atal and stupid as the stones, 

I02 



PRO. E noughy 

T hou art mine enemy ! For a little pain 

»T hou givest justice to the dogs. Aside ! 
Hinder my thoughts no more. Alone to-day 
I shall restore the light, 

PYR. O father mine, 

I nothing say who love thee evermore. 
Give us the light and life, give us the hope. 
That lue may never question but abide 
U nthinkingly by what is set before, 
L ay thy two hands upon my brow, and smile 
Tho' the night hide thy sweetness, ^ay the word, 
Give us the promise. We believe thy strength, 

I ¥or see, we suffer and so scarcely endure 

I T hat nothingness were better far, and ev'n 

T he being unborn a wholly happy thing. 

PRO. Y es, woman, word and promise hold: I swear '/ 
BjF me and thee who hearest in the world 
T he sweeter burden and the sharper pain. 
T his night is not forever nor long, and soon 
between the cliffs of darkness issuing shall 
T he day its thousand arrows pour abroad 
Here where we lived — and shall in other years 
hive and increase, our children's children, on 
T generations jealous as the Gods, 
T his will I do, and if they stood in rank, 
Y et will I storm them, winning back the fire 
And scattering the hope that cannot die. 

D E u . W hat misery will be ours ! 

PYR. Sipeak to the end. 

'T is sweet to dream on what not yet has been, 

PRO. 'T were sure a shame to grovel at the doors 

103 



hnd ask a pittance ^ when the hord is I. ■ 

DEU. 'Necessity/ \ 

PRO. W ^ change and pass away, 

B ut so in changing have some mastery , we 
R evolving make progression, we endure 
In virtue of desire and hope dissatisfied. 
And, thro* disaster struggling, at the last 
Fetch in salvation and the human end. 
This for now! nay, only a little space 
Of twilight is before, a dubious interval 
After the night, this side of day, as tho* 
W e stood upon the threshold momently 
W here morning meets with evening passing by. 
Therefore in tears no longer dreaming, now 
T urn, tho* your hearts be broken, turn your eyes 
D ayward, and quelling all lament with hope 
^ ait for my coming homeward, I declare 
I will go bring the sunlight in my hands 
B ack from God's citadel and home to us. 

\}^e goes away.] 
PAN. [singing]. 

Before my eyes they come and go; 
The shadows on my dreaming face 
M ove to and fro, 

Y et I look further over larger ways. 
For pity is not of that nor this, 
A nd kindness stretches out her arm 
O n all that is. 

To keep the grass-blade and the star from harm. 
She kisses every dying wave 
Into the sweetness of her trust, 
A nd stoops to save 
104 



The bird that sank from heaven into dust, — 

The battle hurtles long and loud 

between the mountains and the sea; 

T he yellow cloud 

Crashes the woods in sunder tree by tree^ 

And struggling over land and main 

T he generations masterful 

W ith greed and pain 

Scatter upon the turf a brother"* s skull: 

I walk the places where they drove 

A nd sing my song where all is cursed, 

Then^for my love^ 

The child will play again, the flower burst, 

DEU. ^hat a strange mournful voice is hers! 

PYR. ^o^no! \ feel a happiness bringing leaves 
Upon the branches, and the night is less 
Between now and to-morrow! Oh, to-morrow 

DEU. Thine, woman, is a silly heart, and trust 
I s in thy being like a malady. 
Father ?rometheus, greatest of us all, 
Avails not with his majestic arrogance 
To wrench from God the blessing he denies. 
And we be cursed! I know not wherefore, no. 
I cannot say what mischief, thine or mine, 
Merited punishment: but we be cursed 
Beyond our father's valour to revoke, — 
And I believe, to pay his awful deed, 
H e will hang out in anguish crucified 
Upon the giddy ramparts of the world ^ 
W hile we mysteriously damned shall hide 
Here at night's bottom to the last of time. 

105 . 



EP 
DE 
EPI 



D eukalion I 
D E u . H ere^ father ^ this way home. 

EPI. D eukalion ! 
D E u . H ere^ here ! Thou seekest us ? 

What is'tf 
EPI. l^ve journeyed hopeless and too long, 

N othing before but darkness and behind 
This endless shadow of my memory. . 
p Y R . ?oor heart ! thou lovest overmuch the past. 

B ut happiness is toward, the night will end. 
D E u . Heed her not, Epimetheus ! Thy brother 

H as spoiled her brain with promises and words 
EPI. W here is he? 

D E u . C ome to fetch the fire again^ 

T kindle back the world to what it was. 

EPI. T he fool I He struggles forward evermore, 

hike one who stumbles; but the sadder thought 
Never constrains him, that futurity 

Is dead with phantoms of the things bygone, 

D E u . Aye, and alive with sufferings that are. 

He's wild and rolls like whirlwind up a steep, 
L eaving but ruin. 
^P^- W hen I consider time, 

Remembering all my pastimes and the haunts 
W here clustered flowers erewhile that one by 
^ Shone either side the path of what I was. 
My bosom fills more than to hold with pain. 
And yearning, like a swallow in the void, 
S trains aching, dropping down, down endlessly 
PYR. Come nearer that I rest thee in my arms. 
PAN. [singing']. 

Many who have only dreamed of me 
1 06 



one 



Have grown unhappy and lost their years. 

They gather the daisies thoughtfully^ 

T hen throw them away and burst in tears. 

Their eyes are filled — for they looked so long — 

With the sunset-light of my aureole-, 

T heir lips will quiver to utter song^ 

A nd the spring lies swelling under their soul. 

For their hand in a woman's hand is laid 

A nd between a woman's breasts their brow. 

For a while they feel no longer afraid 

W ith the sky above and the earth below: 

But never the whole and the fulness come. 

Their eyes are blind with another light. 

They walk through echoes and have no home^ 

L ike shadows waving upon the night, 

Fandora's voice. 

Obscure and pitiful, 
W hat sawest thou on thy travel? 

N(7 daylight. 
Nor anything on before; but at my back 
F^emembrance made a weary song^ chanting 
T he mellow seasons that have gone away. 

D E u . hnd bringest nothing ? 

E P I . N ^. 

D E u . Fiow profitless^ 

T hou and thy brother^ elders tho* ye be^ 
W orry the time out and defeat yourselves. 
One storms gigantic up the heavens; thou 
Triest to die with thine own memory, 

p Y R . L eave him^ Deukalion^ for he is so sad. 

DEU. Aye^ *tis we suffer their temerities^ 

107 



A nd back and forth ^ to ends we know not of^ 
yiadden between to-morrow and yesterday. 

PYR. Father y be comforted! And if it please thee^ 
Accordittg to thy fancy ^ nothing forced^ 
Sing us meanwhile a rune here in the night. 
For song is very like a summer fern 
Sweeter for dark; and we sad winter birds 
W /// dream a little while more pleasantly, 

E p I . [chanting']. 

The noise in the eternal heart abates. 
T he valley of the world is blotted out^ 
And either end the boulders on the gates 

A re pushed across and shut. 
T he moutitains in the dark are growing small. 
N wind is any more upon the lea. 
The stone has frittered from the waterfall 

Down rivers to the sea. 
T he uttermost is swelling out in voidy 
I n total nighty more cold and emptier 
A round the ghost of that which is destroyed^ 
The breath of things that were. 

[A long silence.} 

p Y R . H ushy for I hear him. 

D E u . Say! 

PYR. P rometheus 

Is coming. All thro* my blood the pulses knocky 
I see the flames — they crackle, 

D E u . Yier brain is wild. 

I feel like echoes of the lost daylight — 
Fie comesy he comes. N*?^, look how fast the light 
R oils gaining on the dark and urges back 
hike windy boulders of obscurity. 
io8 



EPI. 
PYR 



His step! I hear htm^ I see him — Vrometheus ! 
\_shouting from far\ 

This torch will light our lives. Rejoice/ up, up! 
I say we have the sunlight back again. 
Kow sharp a dazzle races the empty air! 
I see nothing. 

I / reddens in my two eyes^ 
M^ brain is needled thro* with pain, 
[rushing in with a torch^ lights the pyre]. 

R ejoice^ 
The lost is won! Our dignities once more 
R esume their proper thrones^ and we are men. 
T hy forehead shines Me morning! on thy neck 
I lay my arms — but the light kills — 

N<9, come 
A nd gladden ! Logs here and pitch and all that burns ^ 
T hat kindlesy flames. Bring, pile it high as heaven, 
A long like rivers and across like fields ! 
'T has dawned at last, such dawn as ne'er before 
T ore the wide sky. From out bottomless chasms 
Fountains jet glittering up into the sky 
A nd hailstone sparks descend, tumbling like sand 
Over the mountains swollen in conflagration. 
Stay, Father, hear me! 

I have it from the Gods. 
Aye, from the hearthstone of the Gods I caught 
This fire and hope and knowledge won to us — 
My torch be brandished in the face ofXeus! 
Brother, be softer in triumph or we die. 
S till was it night, thick night, when I at the base 
Of their enormous mountain stood, around me 
A blacker gloom, foliage and bearded firs, 

109 



All of a fores fs heaviness: thro* which 
"D own from the summit wanderingly quired 
Amaxing echoes of a festival^ 
Of instruments and choral song. Below 
Soundedy like vast itinerant herds afield 
U nder the nighty the torrents rumbling on. 
There I began. Sheer up the nighty alone 
And without fear ^ catching ahold of pines 
To swing me higher or stay me from recoil^ 
I climbed. Beneath my trample brushwood crashed 
I n the spongy soily and snapped the twigs short-off. 
Behind^ dislodged^ stone after stone bounded 
Down thumping to the depths. But straightaway 
I groped thro* snarls of ragged boughs that scratched 
My visage blind^ and tore the weedy shrubs 
W hich like fine cordage knotted my feet back : 
So foundered up the dumb dead humid night, 
Soon thinned the forestry. Yrom tree to tree 
Y^spacedy the ground lay tamer ^ — moss and herbs^ 
A softness underfoot. Then, not a pine, 
But blind and weary slopes of shale that passed 
Upward in the deserted gloom. I gasped — 
'T was icy still and thin, and very sweet 
W ith unseen fiowersy the last of earthly things 
Carelessly blooming in immensity, 
W here still I mounted like an arrow shot 
Up with revenge and scorn to the midnight clouds. 
Sudden the windier air froze and my feet 
C runched snow which even in such a dark as was 
S hone bluely with a smothered light away 
T the summit. At my throat I felt the void; 
I / stung my sweated face. I stamped the crust, 
no 



A nd step by step ascending wilfully 
L adder ed the cold up skyward to the end. 
just then that musicy which half heard before 
A nd undistinguished down the steeps unfurled, 
S truck quicker rhythm ; and looking up I saw 
Mid draperies of darkness hanging vague 
A halo shining downwards, in the ice 
M irrored like vapour mazed with meteors. 
In a last hurry I climbed. The freezing dark 
Was all a tremor of song, and finally 
A dim design of snowy mansion grew 
Ghostly and lucid, carved of summer cloud, 
A white fame tapering at the core of space. 
And then methought the appalling night and gloom 
"Drew like an ocean's ebb sinkingly down, 
I swimming out. The floor lay luminous. 
As when by pale gray weather and no wind 
A glossy lake at morning falls asleep : 
W hence grading to the citadel for steps 
An hundred plinths of crystal led. They cut 
T he mild light slant along their silver edge, 
D escribing circles and diminishing 
Toward certain Columns roundly poised atop. 
Up to that place of supreme glory, I 
Man of the niggard earth and god at heart 
Mounted out of disaster to my place. 
I / seemed daylight growing and diffused, 
splendid, melodious, and of such perfume 
As warms upon a meadow at afternoon 
Of cloudless summer 'y and another light, 
Neither of sun nor moon, awaked the air 
To radiance wreathing on the point of all. 

in 



T his was his palace, vastly and circulary 
Bui/ded of lucent marhUy with a film 
Hung in its height , erratic, shadowing-in 
U nlikely plants and wondrous ocean-flowers, 
A nd placed about stood pillars very firm, 
Where top to bottom slender fiutings ran; 
A nd around every pillar drew a belt 
Mid-high, that brake the rods of light in twain; 
A nd there, clamped in a sconce of gold each one 
A nd cin£f with silver snakes, the torches burned 
15 pholding flames of the everlasting fire, 
T he sacred fire that having once been ours 
He stole again who names his own self God, 

E p I . Alas! thy scorn will drag his vengeance down, 

PRO. Veace, man! He wronged me, and the day is mine. 
One of those torches is this in my hand, 
\t flamed to right where the entrance is, two bright 
\r on-swung sheets of brass, firm-barred across 
A nd bolted Against the fearful universe : 
W hile inside cried aloud perennial choirs 
To a single note so puissant and superb 
I / seemed an ocean singing to the sun. 
- I heard, and seized the torch. In challenge too 
W renching the clasp, I hurled it formless down 
B efore their gates and turned my feet away, 

[It thunders."] 

PYR. Father, be calm, 

D E u . O desolation and despair ! 

T hou, wretched man, shalt be our ruin. 

PYR. Hush! 

The winds are up — 

EPi. It had to be — 

112 



> Y R . Like streams 

S wirling before they burst, 

5EU. A thunder-cloud 

U nravels down out of the burning sky. 

PRO. I say^ whatever* s achieved^ once and for all 
S tands in defiance^ and we at Nature^ s heart 
Register signs of our nobility. 
This is the symbol I have had my will, 
W hich down the crystal stairs into the depth 
I bore, a little fame thro^ darkness, won 
From summits which henceforth are counted ours, 
W ith it I ^ve lit the world. — hook forth, my children I 
A // the unfolded earth, mountain and vale 
Holding their fruits aloft, the knotty crags 
Scattering colour, and the prairies green 
W ith tuft and billow of infinite grass : 
Of all their life your life is nourished. 
Follow the rivers further to the sea 
A nd launch your enterprise I The wilful soul 
G oes forward to possess, and vindicates 
From strength to strength the majesty of life. 

E p I . Alas! 

'Nothing will teach thee infelicity. 
The sunrise is not all: who shall forget 
For stubbornness or greed the yesterdays 
W hich rivet us to the soil we come of? See, 
T he woman weeps, 

PYR. \^to Prometheus]. V II follow on — heednothim — 
Despite exhaustion for the hope — 

EPi. The hope? 

W hat says she? 

PRO. More of truth than e*er thou knew*st. 

113 



D E u . O A, this it is that whets the rusty scythe ! 
A nd notwithstanding certainly we believe 
It nothing profits so throughout the year 
T<3 strain^ yet strain all the year thro* we musty 
Knd for a hope! l^hou mad^st it so! The worm 
W hich bores the parchM glebe is happier ^ 
The goaded oxen plodding for a bread 
Not their Sy more calm — thou mad^st it so! A curse 
Upon thee! May thy tortures pay our own^ 
O ur stupid agonies that in the daylight now 
B egin afresh ! — I will not struggle more, 

PRO. Hf whines. A pity ^tis the world consists 
Of such: who using nature and themselves^ 
S uffer their task and clog with lamentation 
The rush and furtherance of human things. 
For hopey being hady suffices; in so much 
W e prosper y and the Gods are idle dreams 
Strung in the void of our uncertain thoughts. 

[It thunders.] 

E p I . A not her day has been, 

D E u . T hunder again ! 

T he eternal reason will be justifiedy 
A nd truth descends against the haughty brain. 

p Y R . How^t darkens ! 

PRO. [soliloquising]. She too loses heart. At lasty 
^ hat ever be done of large and generous y 
Howe^r one^s life be giveny and freely all 
T>elighty affeSfiony quiet sacrificed 
For something bolder to the good of many — 
Y et at the last he will prefer disgrace 
A nd hug his slavery y leaving him that strove 
To fight damnation and despair alone. 
114 



p Y R . Ah me^ the daylight vanishes in death, 

[A cloud gradually falls through the scene, 
and all fades in gray obscurity,^ 

PAN. [singing]. 

As an immortal nightingale 
I sing behind the summer sky 
Thro' leaves of starlight gold and pale 
T hat shiver with my melody. 
Along the wake of the full-moon 
Far on to oceans, and beyond 
Where the horizons vanish down 
I n darkness clear as diamond, 

EPi. On wings of memory the night returns. 

T he great bird gires before he drop again. — 
S unlight and country that I knew ! O sky I 
Y e furl yourselves and wander shadowily 
I nto the endless backward of the heart, 

PYR. 1/ blows and darkens in, Where is he? 

[It thunders,] 

THE VOICES OF ZEUS. 

M an, come with us, come with us, come away ! 

PRO. [aside], 

H is voice ! 

THE VOICES. C ome to receive thy certain pain. 

PRO. Justice of God, malignant destiny. 

Delirious curse/ how it confounds the brain 
To see thee blast our strength, and day by day 
With all thy crooked fingers here rip up 
T he patient fabric of our energy. 
Over the endless harvest, o^er the home 
We builded with great pain, for pastime thou 

"5 



SpilPst putrefaSfion^ and upon thy palm 

T he world shakes like an egg, to shut and crush, 

THE VOIC ES. 

Be ready, for the time is "Now/ We^ve come 

To lead thee to the edge of wilderness, 
PRO. We* II die in battle. Come near, 
THEVoicEs. T hou canst not die, 

'T/j thine to struggle everlastingly. 

hook o'er the world, unhappy wretch, and come! 

PAN. \_singing\ 

My dew is everywhere 

W here things are; 
I fall and flutter and fare, 

L eaving a star 
By the roads of earth, in the far 

Vaths of the air, 

M ine is the milk to charm 

In a mother'* s breast, 
S weet with her pain and warm 

W ith her rest. 
The life that asks for a nest 

In her arm; 

A nd mine is the violet 

T hat so lies 
I n the evening of her wet 

S orrowful eyes. 
For another thing may rise, 

B ut her youth has set, 

N othing is less with me, 

Nothing is lost. 
u6 



For I smile on the earth and sea^ 

On the infinite host 
Of the dead and the livings and most 

On the yet-to-be, 

PRO. Vandoray how thou singest o^er my pain 
Y et of my humiliation nothing! Ah^ 
Yarewelly and let thy voice for evermore 
Sweeten the dreary acres of mankind, 

THE VOICES. 

Thy day is at an end. 
PRO. But not my deed/ 

The light is theirs and I the giver thereof 

L ong as blood beats within the human heart, — 

Unhand me! Ah! 
THE VOICES. W ear now thy chains, 

p YR. W ho ts't that chains f Where is he nowF 
PRO. A lone^ 

Beyond thy armsy in other hands than thine. 

THE VOICES. 

D rag him on ! for he balks the will of God, 
PRO. Y et does my work outstrip the penalty, 
Nothing may die or live infru^uous^ 
And Vm immortal: for 1 join with Beings 
A nd nothing in the universal sphere 
B ut is, 

*Twas with me for a while as with the sun 
Upon the ocean : writing out in gold 
The moving chara^ers of highest day^ 
W hich to dull creatures of the depth appeared 
F antastic and divine and possible. 



117 



THE VOIC ES. 

Drag him away! The stubborn mind has burst, 
PRO. M any times I have died and yet shall die. 
For Nature rolls on^ while across the chasms 
F rom hill to hill and round from east to west 
V oices pass on the echo to the stars, 
^0 forms are laid aside^ and if I livedy 
I was the cresting of the tide wherein 
An endless motion rose exemplified, 

THE VOICES. 

'Qear him away ^ for evening falleth in, 

[T he cloud lifts^ prometheus has dis- 
appeared. A great sunset fills the scene. '\ 

PAN. [singing]. 

My soul of sunset every human day 
I n long sad colours on the evening dwells 
And gives her solemn violet away 
Over the quiet endlessness of hills. 

Mild and gold burns from cloud to cloudy above 
The obscurer fields^ my pity for an hour; 
A nd then life goes to sleep within my love^ 
T he world is drawn together as a flower, 

L abour at last within the soul is peace^ 
And faithful pain after a certain while 
L ike other things will strengthen and increase 
A nd colour at the last into a smile, — 

R^5/ in my bosom till thy day be due^ 
U ntil my day be finished at sunrise^ 
And I behold thee glittering thro* the blue 
And playing in the sunset of my eyes, 
ii8 



The sunset comes to die now as ofyore^ — 
T he sad recurrence of remembered things, 
H^'j gone to suffer^ gone whither? Alas! 
Would I knew where his bleeding head will lie 
To give my breast for pillow and avert 
T he dreadful vengeance feeding on his soul! — 
H ow crimsonly the day declines ! Come sleepy 
D eukalion^ for to-morrow brings again 
The sun he gave us^ and the hope — the life. 



119 



A LIMITED EDITION OF THREE HUNDRED & 
FIFTY-TWO COPIES OF THIS BOOK, OF WHICH 
THREE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE COPIES 
ARE FOR SALE, WAS PRINTED BY D. B. UPDIKE 
THE MERRYMOUNT PRESS, BOSTON, IN OCTO- 
BER, MDCCCCU. OF THE EDITION THIS COPY 
IS NUMBER 



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